


Wolf Like Me

by JustAnotherSnakeCult



Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: Don't Examine This Too Closely, F/M, Love/Hate, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sexting, Sexual Tension, Shameless Smut, Slow Burn, Smut, Tattoos, We're really shooting from the hip here, Whatever Bean and Postie ask for, everyone is a brat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-16 21:09:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 46,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29706615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustAnotherSnakeCult/pseuds/JustAnotherSnakeCult
Summary: My mind has changed my body's frame, but God, I like it.My heart's aflame, my body's strained, but God, I like it.
Relationships: Female V/Goro Takemura/Sandayu Oda, Sandayu Oda & V, Sandayu Oda/Female V, Sandayu Oda/Goro Takemura/V, V/Goro Takemura (Implied)
Comments: 541
Kudos: 226





	1. Transfer My Tragedy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [postmodernsleaze](https://archiveofourown.org/users/postmodernsleaze/gifts), [shenanigan_manifesto](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shenanigan_manifesto/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Exposition, but with the word "tits."
> 
> Suggested listening: "I Wanna Dance With Somebody," Marian Hill

**[UNKNOWN NUMBER 11:20 AM]:**

_V? Hanako-sama has requested that I check to_

_see if you are indeed still alive._

_What the actual fuck?_

V had put the kettlebell she had been lifting down on the floor to look at her phone, and she was glad; it surely would have dropped out of her hand from shock and her toes would have been the victim. 

The shadow of Arasaka had been looming large over her head since they had pulled her out of Mikoshi and uploaded her into her new meatsack. There had not been any direct contact, no, but V felt eyes on her every time she stepped out her door. Hanako’s “offer” of employment felt less like a choice and more of an inevitability. _Take your time_ , she had said. _You have much to consider and a new path to forge_. Guess the sand in the hourglass was running thin.

Goro was back in Japan. She had received a text from him shortly after she returned to Earth—a picture of a cat under a cherry blossom tree with the text _“I see you here sometimes, V._ ” It had very nearly broken her. Sure, Night City was her home—born and raised, and technically buried and raised again—but being back here after everything felt like being in a foreign land. Johnny was gone, and her heart ached most days, a low, reverberating echo in the space of her missing half. Misty, Mama Welles, and Vik were coolly civil to her on the best of days. The rope of those bridges were frayed and smoldering, and it was unwise to put too much weight on them at once. It was understandable. Judy and the Aldecaldos had left a trail of dust behind them as they moved on. River—just no. V was more alone than she had ever been before, a ghost among the living. New on the outside. Broken on the inside.

This text was not from Goro, though. She supposed it could be any one of the corpo doctors or nurses that had helped her with her transition: blank, solemn faces that were more robotic than human. _No. Far too familiar for that._ It took another long moment before the answer clunked into place in her brain.

_Ugh._

She knew she should respond. She didn’t have to be nice about it, though.

**[V 11:25 AM]:**

_New life, who dis?_

**[UNKNOWN NUMBER 11:26 AM]:**

****_I see that your childishness has survived Mikoshi. Unfortunate._

**[V 11:27 AM]:**

_Christ, how is it possible that you’re even more insufferable_

_when you’re NOT in the room?_

**[V 11:27 AM]:**

_I’m not even mad. I’m impressed._

**[UNKNOWN NUMBER 11:28 AM]:**

_As if I would need to impress you. I am to inquire after your_

_physical recovery and mental well-being._

**[UNKNOWN NUMBER 11:29 AM]:**

_Do not mistake this as actual concern._

**[V 11:29 AM]:**

_That’s just what you would say to hide your concern! :P_

**[V 11:30 AM]:**

_The body is fine. Soft and weak, but fine. Flabby but functional._

_Too much fat, not enough muscle. Nice tits, though._

**[V 11:31 AM]:**

_No one there cares about my mental well-being, but I’m not_

_gonna flatline myself and ruin the goods, if that’s what_

_your superiors want to know. Run and report back_

_now, errand boy._

**[UNKNOWN NUMBER 11:33 AM]:**

_I do not recall your new form being disproportionately “flabby.”_

**[UNKNOWN NUMBER 11:34 AM]:**

_If your biometrics have changed significantly, I need to report it._  
_Send a picture of the areas of concern immediately._

_This fuckin’ guy just can’t take a hint, can he?_ Not to mention some finesse could go a long way if he was going to be demanding pictures of her like that. Any sort of peace V was chasing through a brutal workout had evaporated a little further with each buzz of her phone. She was scowling by the last message. None of it was a lie, really: the body (she hadn’t started thinking of it as “her body” yet) was perfectly functional, as meatsacks go. Her datajack and optics worked great; she had been waking up with so little pain in her joints and head that she thought something was wrong, until she realized that’s what having _nothing_ wrong felt like. The sharpness, though, the feeling of having honed herself as a weapon; it was no longer there. She longed for it back, and was getting closer by the day, working out until her sweat puddled on the floor and her muscles burned. That sort of exercise required a kind of concentration she certainly didn’t have now, though.

V flopped on the bed, head landing close enough to Nibbles that he gave a startled chirp, staring at her balefully as he moved exactly six inches over before curling back into a ball. 

**[V 11:37 AM]:**

_Bet your messages are flooded with nudes with that sort of charm._

**[V 11:38 AM]:**

_I’m not that kinda woman usually, but since you asked so nicely …_

It took surprisingly little time for her to come up with an appropriate response. One arm rose above her head, carefully centering herself in the frame and aligning her free hand in front of her face to obscure it, middle finger with a pointed black nail sticking straight up. _Click_ . She whipped the screen around. _Perfect._

**[V 11:40 AM]:**

[image]

_Satisfied?_

Silence. Enough silence that she was pretty sure he had given up in disgust, which was just fine by her. Her workout may have been a bust but she was sweaty enough that a shower wasn’t optional, and then she could get on with her day. Maybe they wouldn’t have as much plainclothes surveillance on her today since she had technically reported to _someone._

She was toweling off several minutes later when she heard the buzz of her phone again. When she picked it up, she saw that the contact’s information had been saved into her phone without her doing so. _Presumptuous prick._

**[ODA 11:53 AM]:**

_I know exactly what kind of “woman” you are._

_Well, that’s ominous._

**[V 11:53 AM]**

_Then you also know I can’t wait for you to fuck right off._

**[ODA 11:55 AM]:**

[image]

A sharp bark of surprised laughter shot out of V’s mouth. The background was blurry, as were his shoulders and arms in his dark corpo suit, but the important parts were as clear as day. His well-manicured hand was centered in the picture, middle finger sticking straight up, framed on one side by the black hair attached to his hidden head. She tapped out a reply, wrapped in a towel in the middle of her apartment. He absolutely could _not_ have the last word.

**[V 11:56 AM]:**

_You wish, little boy._

\---

The stitch in her side was sharper than any bullet she could remember feeling; she clutched at her ribs as her feet slowed their pounding to a stop in the early morning quiet of the park. _People that liked running really are sick fuckers_ , she confirmed, sucking air in and out of her lungs in rapid gasps. The nose cut through the still air. She raised her arms and locked her hands behind her head, going full surrender cobra on this failed attempt at cardio.

The buzz of Night City was always there, humming lowly in the background, but this early in the morning, there was something that could pass for calm in the garden by Corpo Plaza. Walking bodies weren’t bouncing off each other. The roads were quieter. Food carts and stalls had their shades pulled. In a past life, V would’ve hated the serenity of it all. Now? It was strangely comforting. The throbbing heart of the city was still pounding, but its eyes were closed, its heart calm. She was envious of it. 

Her feet had started moving again, albeit at much more casual pace. The sun was peeking through the leaves, dappling the sidewalk in light, scattering over her skin as she walked. She looked down at her arms and thought, for the first time in what seemed like an eternity, that she looked pretty. 

Her phone buzzed, breaking the spell of the moment.

**[ODA 06:13 AM]:**

_Are you in the park?_

Why the _fuck_ did he want to know? She hadn’t seen anyone that looked ostensibly corpo on her embarrassingly short jaunt—which meant there were probably at least three people watching her right now.

**[V 06:14 AM]:**

_This is an incredibly rude hour to be texting someone, you know._

**[V 06:15 AM]:**

_Why don’t you ask the 24/7 V Observation Agency_

_you’ve got running?_

**[ODA 06:17 AM]:**

[image]

V sucked in a sharp breath through her teeth. That was _her_ , standing on the brick path, arms slightly spread in front of her with a contemplative look on her face. 

Her head whipped around, but she was alone on the sidewalk, trees on all sides with the exception of the break for the bench. She squinted at the photo again: it had been taken from above her, and there—a portion of bench in the lower left corner. She tilted her chin up, using her hand to shade her eyes against the sun and squint up towards the top of the hill the seating alcove was nestled against. She could make out the outline of a pagoda-shaped gazebo, and in it, the faintest shadow of a man against the morning light.

**[V 06:19 AM]:**

_That’s fuckin’ creepy, Oda. Don’t do that shit._

**[V 06:19 AM]:**

_What are you doing in Night City? Your handlers all_

_delta’d a long time ago._

**[ODA 06:20 AM]:**

_Your stamina is terrible._

What a little worm. She threw her arm up in the air and waved her middle finger in the general direction of the pagoda, in case he was still there.

**[V 06:21 AM]:**

_Your social skills are even worse._

**[V 06:22 AM]:**

_This body’s only 3 months old, so I’m doing great for_

_a_ newborn _. Now fuck off._

**[ODA 06:23 AM]:**

_I would if I could, but yet again you ruin everything._

**[V 06:24 AM]:**

_The fuck does that mean?_

She didn’t want to wait for an answer. It took every ounce of self-restraint for V to slip her phone in her pocket and jog away without looking back at the gazebo. She made it around the corner and well past its line of sight before she dared stop. What the _fuck_ was going on here? She knew Arasaka was watching her; sure, fine, but they weren’t pestering her like he was. Was Hanako that hard-up to have her join the team? Was he going to put a bullet through her brain when she least expected it to reclaim his besmirched “honor” from the parade?

V made it until she was behind her apartment door to get out her phone again. No answer from Oda. _Fine._ She would just have to escalate things.

“C’mere, Nibbles.” The cat perked his ears at his name and sauntered over, only fussing a little as V lifted him and snapped a picture of his strangely beautiful face.

**[V 06:46 AM]:**

_Nibbles says hi._

[image]

**[GORO 06:48 AM]:**

_A handsome creature. : )_

**[V 06:49 AM]:**

_And his owner says “Why the fuck is Oda in Night_

_City and texting me?”_

**[GORO 06:50 AM]:**

_Hanako-sama asked him to remain and oversee_

_your recovery supervision._

**[GORO 06:51 AM]:**

_I am surprised to hear he has been in contact,_

_however._

**[V 06:52 AM]:**

_That makes two of us. Switch him places._

**[GORO 06:53 AM]:**

_V, I cannot, even if it would be good to see you._

**[GORO 06:54 AM]:**

_Your body will be cleared for international travel_

_in 90 days. I would still like to show you Japan, if_

_you would still like to visit. : )_

A smile tugged at her lips and a pain tugged at her heart. She missed Goro, sure—he had become her friend, and, on a couple of drunken occasions, a very thoughtful and thorough more-than-a-friend. They had arrived at a strange kind of professional and personal respectful affection. More broadly, though, V missed having her people—chooms to be around, to call on if you needed them. 

**[V 06:56 AM]:**

_Absolutely, as long as Oda doesn’t come too._

**[GORO 06:56 AM]:**

_You are incorrigible._

V didn’t think it was supposed to be a compliment, but she was going to take it as one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and feedback always welcome!
> 
> Thank you to @shenanigan_manifesto and @postmodernsleaze for being terrible enablers and very enthusiastic cheerleaders. Also, thanks to all the great people on the Cyberpunks, Afterlife, and Lizzie's Discord servers. I'm in love with all of you.
> 
> Come hang out on [Tumblr!](https://cp2077thotsociety.tumblr.com/) Tag your thirst with #cp2077thotsociety.


	2. Got A Curse I Cannot Lift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you are unfamiliar with the delightful lipstick variation of flipping someone off, please see [this](https://media1.tenor.com/images/06c8d35f5c137bc72353c97b6f7b78b9/tenor.gif?itemid=10988157).
> 
> Suggested listening: "Too Repressed," Sometymes Why

**[ODA 09:11 AM]:**

_It is time for your 90-day post-upload_

_physical. Come to Arasaka Tower today_

_at 3 PM._

**[V 09:12 AM]:**

_You can’t ask someone on a date this last-minute,_  
_Oda. What if I’ve got stuff going on?_

  
**[ODA 09:12 AM]:**

_You do not._

V couldn’t argue with him there. Her Autonomy Agreement strictly forbade anything vaguely resembling mercenary work—the irony of it did not escape her. She had been able to squeeze in a few transport jobs for Regina when it wasn’t anything too scandalous, but that was mostly for something to do. Arasaka had comfortably padded her bank account, although for what beyond the basics, she wasn’t sure. Her requests for any cybernetics had been flatly denied, and there were only so many leather jackets a person could own.

**[V 09:13 AM]:**

_Rude. That’s no way to talk to a lady._

**[ODA 09:14 AM]:**

_I will remember that if I speak to one._

**[ODA 09:15 AM]:**

_Wear athletic gear and bring a change of clothes._

_You will be participating in a stress test._

**[V 09:16 AM]:**

_You mean that’s not what this is? Sure_

_feels like it.:P_

\---

She didn’t recognize any of the doctors that met her at the elevator, lined up in their white lab coats like obedient little sheep.

“Ms. V,” said the one nearest to her, a young, pretty woman with her hair slicked back into a sensible bun. “Please follow me.”

“Lead the way.” V shifted her gym bag on her shoulder, uncomfortable with the formality of it all already. She knew that Oda was lurking somewhere, probably in a dark corner cackling like the villain he was. _This can’t be over soon enough._ Once the door to the exam room closed, she stripped as instructed, and the next 20 minutes were full of needle pokes, prods, and way-too-personal questions.

“Tingling in extremities?”

“No.”

Numbness?”

“No.”

“Tightness or pain in the chest?” _I doubt she’s asking about heartache._

“No.”

“Headaches?”

“Only after too much tequila.”

“… and how often?” The doctor was trying, unsuccessfully, to hide her judgment.

“Like, once since you’ve booted me up. So quarterly.” That seemed to satisfy her as she scribbled on her notepad. Probably said something like “fugly slut.”

“Thank you, Ms. V. Please dress and join us in the exercise facility. It’s all the way down the hall on the right.”

She shook her head slightly and started pulling on her clothes as the doctor pulled the door closed. They were going to let her walk all the way down the hallway unsupervised. _What a relaxed, laid-back environment._ She didn’t come in with a stick up her ass, but she would probably leave with one.

The gym was sleek, black, and spacious, stuffed full of top-tier cardio, strength, and free weight equipment. A raised track circled the center space above their heads, and sun filtered in through the tall, tinted windows on one wall. Arasaka employees in various states of activity were spread through the machines. A faint whiff of chlorine caught in her nose; there was a pool nearby.

V felt Oda before she saw him. The doctors were muttering among themselves and shuffling papers amongst their clipboards like any of it mattered, ignoring her while she took a few minutes to stretch. She knew she was being watched. Of course she was being watched, but this felt more _intense._ It didn’t take her long to spot him once she started looking, either. He was leaning on the track railing across the gym, arms braced apart as he glowered at her. 

_Always fucking looking down on me._

She couldn’t very well yell “Suck a bag of dicks!” across the gym; that seemed a little much, even for her. She settled instead for something much more subtle: pulling her hand out of her pocket, miming pulling a cap off her middle finger like a lipstick, applying it, recapping it and putting it back. His ghostly blue gaze bore down on her while she did, and she could _swear_ she saw the corner of his lip twitch upward. 

Any more visual warfare was precluded by the doctor. “Ms. V? We are ready to begin.”

\---

Okay, her lungs were starting to hurt now. _Is that normal?_ V was drenched in sweat, the treadmill whirring at a speed that felt just a little too fast, and— _oh, Christ, were they raising the incline?_

She had done push-ups, sit-ups, and pull-ups until failure. They had piled weights onto the leg press until her thighs quaked in protest. She had coaxed her body into pretzel-like yoga poses to demonstrate flexibility. She had pushed a 200-lb sled across a crispy black Astroturf surface back and forth until they had mercifully said she could stop.

There would be no way she would have been able to achieve even half of this without Fred, and she concentrated on her gratitude for him as her breath huffed out of her. She was more than ready to quit, but she knew Oda was still there—could still feel it—and she wasn’t about to give him the fucking satisfaction.

“Ms. V? I am going to slow the treadmill now so you can wind down. Thank you.”

She barely bit back a cry of joy as the machine slowly decelerated to a normal walking pace. Her blood pounding in her ears was suddenly the sound of a thousand freight trains. She tried to dab her forehead dry with her arm, only to find it was just as soaked as the rest of her. She could only imagine what a frizzy mess her ponytail probably was.

The young doctor was in front of her then, offering her a fluffy black towel. V took it, feeling compelled to offer a little bow (as best she could while still walking) and a quiet _“Arigato.”_ The woman blinked in pleasant surprise, the same V felt at her actions. She had just…she had let V walk down the hall by herself. The agency of it had been surprisingly potent.

“Of course, Ms. V. There are facilities for showering on the second floor. I am happy to escort you and walk you out when you are finished.”

“That won’t be necessary, Ito _-_ san _._ I can escort V out. Thank you for your hard work.” She didn’t need to look to know who the growly voice belonged to. _Ugh_. She buried her face in the towel as she heard the doctor scurrying away.

“Yes, Oda-sama. Goodbye, Ms. V.”

“Bye, thanks.” It was muffled behind the towel, but she knew the doctor was already out of earshot. She felt the treadmill slow to a stop. Maybe if she just kept the towel there, he would go away.

V dared to pull a corner of the fabric away from part of her face, immediately seeing a shock of black hair and a cold stare. _Dammit_. She uncovered her face and blotted at her neck and arms nonchalantly, like she had lethal corpo bodyguards staring her down every day. "Afraid I was gonna corrupt that sweet little doctor with my presence alone, huh?"

There wasn’t an immediate reply, and she looked up curiously to find him looking not at her face but at where the towel was dragging along the skin of her chest. _Huh. Looks like cold little corpo boy might be a hot-blooded man underneath all that snobbery and elitism._ He definitely wasn’t her style when it came to inputs or mainlines, but any tool in her belt that might piss him off was a tool worth having.

Her hand made it all the way up her neck to her jaw before Oda realized she was watching him with a satisfied smirk on her flushed face. _Ugh_. What an arrogant woman. Even after all she had been through, she was still so stubborn, refusing to acknowledge what an incredible gift Hanako-sama had given her. If anything, it had relit the flame of resentment everyone was sure they could extinguish by removing Silverhand. 

_V is unlike anyone I have ever met,_ Takemura-san had told him, and Oda had cringed at the affectionate undertone in his old sensei’s voice. His time away from the company had softened him, if he thought this street rat was anything more than another cog in the machine.

“You could easily overpower Ito-san and go on a rampage,” he said coolly. “I do not trust you not to do so. Get your things.”

“I wouldn’t do that, she was nice,” V replied, picking up her gym bag and slinging it on.

“She is paid to be nice to you.” It made her huff out an amused breath as he motioned for her to follow him across the exercise area.

“You need a hell of a raise, then.” _She was right about that, at least._ He stayed silent. She didn’t need to know.

When they reached the foot of the stairs, V turned to survey the gym. She loved working out with Fred, but there was no denying this was a pretty preem place to hone your physical form. _Maybe they would let me work out here sometimes. I’m technically a piece of equipment like that weight rack._

It was like Oda could hear her thoughts. “I can arrange for you to have access to the workout facilities if you would like to continue your physical training in a proper environment.”

 _Even when he’s being nice, he’s a condescending dick_. She turned around to find him studying her from the landing. His optics were unnerving. He probably liked them that way. She dragged her feet up the stairs after him; all of her muscles were essentially pudding at this point. “That would be preem, as long as no one’s going to bench press me.” His eyebrows furrowed just slightly, indicating his confusion. “I’m Arasaka property, just like those free weights.”

It was his turn to huff out a breath as he showed her to the locker room door. “None of the free weights have as smart a mouth as you. I would find that a marked disincentive.”

 _Was…was that a joke?_ “No accounting for taste,” she said, pushing the door to the locker room open and disappearing behind it. Takemura-san’s voice echoed in his head again—” _unlike anyone I’ve ever met.”_

“Indeed,” Oda muttered under his breath to no one, assuming a stance by the door to wait for her to be done. She’d vexed him enough for one afternoon.

\---

“Your phone should now grant you building and workout facility access from 5 AM to 10 PM,” Oda told her as they stood in the lobby of Arasaka Tower. The colors of the sunset painted the lobby in coppery orange light, bathing them both in the otherworldly hue as they conversed almost civilly.

“Thanks.”

“Your data analysis shows you surpassed all the expected benchmarks by some margin,” he continued. It was framed as fact, but V thought it might be a compliment. He would die before admitting to it, though. “There are opportunities for sparring partners on certain days you might find enriching.”

“I know you’re impressed with me, Oda, but I didn’t think you’d be asking for another ass-kicking so soon.” It was out of her mouth before she could stop it. _Well. Moment ruined._

She saw his gaze darken when her eyes met his. “Please. Do not flatter yourself that you would have such dumb luck twice, even if you more than qualify for the former.”

V’s heart jumped into her throat. _The fucking_ nerve _of this guy, even after I spared his life!_ Her hand had curled into a fist without thinking, and the way his eyes flicked down and back up meant he had noticed. “Oda, if you want to call me nasty names, you’re gonna need to buy me at least a drink first.”

It was her turn to notice the passing look of shock that fluttered over his face before it was an impenetrable mask again. “What a waste of money.” He spun on his heel and stalked away toward the elevators, but she was still close enough to hear him when he looked back over his shoulder. “I will concede one point, however.”

“Oh, and what is that, pray tell?”

The floor bell dinged and the doors opened. He stepped into the car and turned to face her; there was no mistaking the smirk on his face or how it startled something awake inside V. “Your tits are magnificent.”

She was still staring at him, mouth ajar, as the doors slid closed.

\---

**[V 02:25 PM]:**

_Hey, Oda._

**[V 02:25 PM]:**

_Oda._

**[V 02:25 PM]:**

_O_

**[V 02:25 PM]:**

_D_

**[V 02:25 PM]:**

_A._

**[V 02:26 PM]:**

_I need to thank you._

**[V 02:27 PM]:**

_You helped me get a really good workout_

_In today._

**[02:28 PM]:**

_I imagined your face on the boxing bot._

**[02:29 PM]:**

_So helpful._

**[02:30 PM]:**

_You’ve got a very punchable face._

_“V. Do not antagonize Oda.”_ She could hear Goro chiding her in her mind. She had imagined him chiding her every day for the past two weeks. After that bombshell in the lobby, she had gone on the offensive—texting him every day, sometimes multiple times a day. He was going to be so sick of her, there’s no way she’d hear from him again. She felt less under his thumb that way; she was at least managing the situation.

Some days, it worked. Other days, it was like poking a bear. A barrage of texts would come through: entitled corpo rants about how childish, unprofessional, uncouth she was; about how having to babysit her was beneath him; about how he hoped to never see her again; about how he would stop Hanako-sama from hiring her. There had been no further mention of name calling or any follow-up on any of her body parts.

Her workout had left her blood running high; she hadn’t been joking about imagining him under her fists helping fuel her. She was flushed and there was a thin sheen of moisture on her skin, catching the glare of the cruel fluorescent lights. Strands of hair had escaped her ponytail, plastered to her forehead and the sides of her face. And still she was antsy, unsettled. _She wanted to poke a bear._

“Hey, Fred! You got a marker and some athletic tape?” The gym manager looked up from his spot on the bench, fumbling in his pocket before pulling out a permanent marker, tossing it to her V caught it, barely, and snagged the roll of athletic tape that came flying after. Tearing a piece of tape off with her teeth, she slapped it onto the bot’s blank slab of a face and carefully wrote O-D-A in big, visible block letters. She reached into her pocket for her phone, draping an arm around the bot, her still-wrapped hand extending a middle finger toward the camera. Sending him photos of her flipping him the bird had become one of her favorite daily tasks. He did not enjoy it as much, she was certain.

She snapped a few photos and scrolled back through. _Hmm. Something’s missing_ . These were impish, sure, but they didn’t feel… _deviant_ enough. This was standard fare. She knew he was growing immune.

_Well…hm. Fuck it._

She re-draped her arm and recreated the offensive hand sign, this time puckering her lips in an exaggerated kiss and pressing them to the side of the bot’s head. Her wrist tilted slightly downward. _Click._

It was much the same picture as last time, except this caught the lower half of her jaw and her disingenuous smooch against the tape. It also revealed the sweat-slicked column of her throat and chest, although her sports bra prevented any really scandalous cleavage. It was still quite a bit more skin than her she had shown at her stress test, and that had him ogling. _Yeah. That’ll do._

**[V 02:36 PM]:**

[image]

“V, quit makin’ out with my bot, that’s weird! There’s joytoys for that shit!”

She quickly yanked the makeshift name tag off the bot, grinning to herself as she tossed the marker and tape roll back to a bewildered Fred. The smirk stayed on her face all the way up the stairs and into her apartment.

**[ODA 02:43 PM]:**

_You are an insufferable nuisance._

She really shouldn’t be enjoying this as much as she was. In the back of her mind, she knew that. This was forced communication, inauthentic camaraderie. It annoyed her that she had to be so closely monitored, and that she wasn’t in a position to argue otherwise. It downright pissed her off that a snooty, pampered, highly-prized corpo dog was the one doing the monitoring.

She was so _lonely_ sometimes, though. V found herself wracked with it some nights, sobs shaking her shoulders until she literally passed out from them. Needling Oda had become a quiet relief from the pressure of the emptiness of the life before her.

**[ODA 02:50 PM]:**

[image]

Her throat ran dry, despite the bottle of water she had just chugged. His photo was a mockery of hers, his own crude gesture framed by a torso so cut she thought it may have been carved out of marble. She could just make out the lower edge of his cybernetics in the top of the frame, and there, toward the bottom, the way his pants sat low enough on his hips that she could see the defined slope of muscle on either side. 

This was a disproportionate response. 

V stood, dumbfounded, in her bathroom, just…staring. The synapses in her brain were firing overtime, trying to comprehend what her optics were seeing. She hadn’t expected him to play this game, let alone smash the first pitch out of the park so rudely. She had to mount a defense, and fast.

**[V 02:53 PM]:**

_Speaking of wastes of money, how many eddies_

_did they sink into that metal plate of abs you’re hauling around?_

**[ODA 02:54 PM]:**

_A gentleman never tells._

**[V 02:55 PM]:**

_That implies you’re a gentleman. Anything else you_

_want to lie about while you’re at it?_

**[ODA 02:56 PM]:**

_No, you have wasted quite enough of my time today already._

**[V 02:57 PM]:**

_Try not to waste any more thinking about my great tits naked_

_and wet in the shower, then. Good fuckin’ luck._

V practically launched the phone away from her. It landed with a clatter on her computer desk, and Nibbles started at the sound from his bed underneath the counter. “Sorry, bub,” she said, finally stripping out of her damp athletic wear to get into the shower. _Maybe she should leave it colder than normal._ This was getting weird.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and feedback always welcome!
> 
> Thank you to @shenanigan_manifesto and @postmodernsleaze for being terrible enablers and very enthusiastic cheerleaders. Also, thanks to all the great people on the Cyberpunks, Afterlife, and Lizzie's Discord servers. I'm in love with all of you.
> 
> Come hang out on [Tumblr!](https://cp2077thotsociety.tumblr.com/) Tag your thirst with #cp2077thotsociety.


	3. Before The Transformation Takes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Suggested listening, "Control You," Movement

**[ODA 06:23 AM]:**

_ Takemura-san, how did you suffer through _

_ working with V? What is the secret? _

**[ODA 06:23 AM]:**

_ I implore you. _

**[TAKEMURA-SAN 06:25 AM]:**

_ It cannot be that awful, Oda-kun. _

**[ODA 06:26 AM]:**

_ She is unendurable. She texts at all times _

_ of day and night about inconsequential _

_ manners. Why? _

**[TAKEMURA-SAN 06:27 AM]:**

_ I daresay you brought that upon yourself _

_ by contacting her first, did you not? _

**[ODA 06:28 AM]:**

_ I was following orders. Hanako-sama asked _

_ it of me, and now I am languishing in this _

_ hellish purgatory of a city, hounded by an _

_ ungrateful, street-trash wretch. _

**[TAKEMURA-SAN 06:29 AM]:**

_ You would do well to remember that V has _

_ proven herself more than capable, mentally _

_ and physically. She appears unassuming, and _

_ that makes her extra formidable. _

**[TAKEMURA-SAN 06:30 AM]:**

_ Or have you already forgotten how you _

_ underestimated her once? _

_ Well, that was unnecessary. _ Oda knew his old mentor had a complicated relationship with his current charge, but he had honestly expected more support. V was occupying more and more of his mental space with what seemed like each passing moment. Sure, she was his professional responsibility, and he was honor-bound to do whatever Hanako-sama asked, no matter how…insulting…it seemed.

It was more than that, though. He still wasn’t sure what had made him lose his composure in the elevator like that. She had been so  _ smug _ , even after he had gone to the trouble of getting her special security clearance for the gym. She had said thanks. It felt insincere. And  _ then _ she had threatened him! Not outright, no, but Oda certainly hadn’t missed her body language change. What recourse did he have? He couldn’t very well engage in combat right there in the lobby. He knew he had struck a blow as she stood, slack-jawed, watching the elevator doors close.

The victory had been pyrrhic. He was now subject to a barrage of texts daily: pictures of her cat, unanswerable questions about the limits of her Autonomy Agreement, subtle (and not-so-subtle) barbs at his corpo status.

And then there had been that  _ picture _ . It wasn’t all that different from how she had finished the stress test, but the slick expanse of skin on her chest had been so much more exposed. The tape on her hands, the nametag on the robot, that smart mouth pressed against it in a mockery of affection.  _ “You have a very punchable face.” _

It made him want to—well, do  _ something  _ to shut her up.

He should never have sent that photo reply, but mistakes are borne out of distraction. Oda wasn’t inexperienced when it came to sex, although his dalliances had been brief and mostly corporately-arranged. There had been an air of instruction about them: pleasuring a woman or a man was just another skill at his disposal. Seduction was another, and it was surprisingly effective when the target was unsuspecting. 

Most of his targets had never hit back so hard, though. He had, in fact, wasted more time thinking about V’s body in a shower that was colder than normal. She was serious about getting into peak physical condition; without her cybernetics and tattoos, he suspected she felt like a visitor in her new body, and exercise kept the dissociation at bay.  _ Still no excuse to be thinking about her chest, skin soaped up and sliding through his fingers as he groped her. _

**[ODA 06:32 AM]:**

_ No, Takemura-san. I have not forgotten. _

**[TAKEMURA-SAN 06:33 AM]:**

_ Very good. V is going through a singular _

_ experience, and most likely feels very confused  _

_ and alone. It might behoove you to try some  _

_ empathy, Oda-kun. _

**[ODA 06:34 AM]:**

_ Yes, Takemura-san. _

\---

V was pretty sure this was her new favorite place in Night City. It wasn’t the wildest Friday night she’d ever seen, but she suspected more and more that those days were permanently behind her.

Arasaka Tower’s fitness facilities were pretty well emptied by 7 every night. Most of Corpo Plaza was, actually; the 8-5 culture was strong here. Everyone went home to their luxury high-rises after they punched out and the streets became almost barren. What it meant, more often than not, is that she could have a high-end gym practically to herself—and the hot tub in the aquatic center afterward. Existential crisis about being a soulless sellout aside, this shit was pretty preem.

She would stay in it until she was wrinkled like a prune. The bubbles lifted her past her physical form to float in a place of disconnectedness, and it was serene in a way she rarely experienced. She was always disappointed when the maximum-allotted-boiling-time safety latch caught and cut off the air abruptly—like now. She slammed back down into her body with a grumble of disappointment.

The access walkway tucked along the side of the gym that led from the pool to the stairs was made of some magical absorptive material, so V wasn’t worried about being dripping wet as she padded along. She was more concerned about unwelcome visitors.  She hadn’t seen Oda since her stress test, although they texted pretty much every day now. They would call each other some names, one of them would tell the other to fuck off, and then it would start again the next day. She was surprisingly grateful for the routine of it; she needed at least a little structure, even if it was just derision from Hanako’s lapdog.

The metallic clank of weights echoing against the high ceiling made her look up from where she had been lost in thought. She didn’t see the source of the noise for a long moment, then she spotted the machine for bicep curls moving at the far end of the gym.

It was like V had manifested him. Oda had his back to her, one arm moving at a deliberate pace as he worked the muscles on the equipment. Even from here, she could see the twitch of fibers on his bare arm; his Arasaka-branded workout shirt was sleeveless. She could see his other arm just as clearly, braced for support; she could see the way his shoulder blades were drawn together, providing tension, and the lean lines of his sides and back. She could see the upper edge of his cybernetics, where they met his hairline; his black hair was pulled back off his face into a spiky, uneven ponytail, revealing the line between man and machine. It was very probable that he was even more machine than what she saw. It was beyond a doubt that he was a man, though. 

Her tongue felt a little thick as she tried to swallow. She blamed it on the fact that she hadn’t gotten laid in her new body yet. Maybe she’d get a joytoy and take care of that, instead of staring at that picture of rock hard abs at night and letting her mind wander about what they would feel like pressed against her torso.

**[V 09:02 PM]:**

[image]

Watching him lean over the bench, pick up his phone, check his text, and then whip his head around in alarm was far more amusing than it should’ve been. 

**[V 09:02 PM]:**

See? It’s creepy.

**[ODA 09:03 PM]:**

Do not be a nuisance. Show yourself.

_ That was a mistake _ . Oda was in no mood for mind games. She had interrupted one of the few times he held close to sacred, and it irritated him more than she usually did. To see her strolling casually along the aquatic walkway to the bottom of the stairs, dripping wet in a black bikini, though—that was more than he had bargained for. He could see the muscle definition she was working exhaustively to achieve: the soft curves in her upper arms; a little valley on the muscles of her thigh; the shadow of definition on her abdomen. He could see exactly where the swell of her breasts started on her chest, and the rivulets of water running between them from the wet end of her braided hair. Most strikingly, he could see that she had gotten a tattoo similar to her last: a snake with delicate blackwork scales, the head resting on the top of one shoulder before stretching across her torso, down one arm, and over the curve of one hip before disappearing. He chose to focus on this, if only to distract himself from the sudden tightness he was feeling in his athletic pants.

**[ODA 09:04 PM]:**

_ You got your tattoo redone.  _

**[V 09:05 PM]:**

_ Oh, shit, really? Thanks for letting me know. _

It made him roll his eyes, and he could hear her amused snort, even from across the gym. It took most of his resolve to not walk over and give her a stern lecture on insubordination. There were other ways he could establish dominance. He stood slowly and purposefully from the weight machine, turning to face her. They were still separated by at least 50 feet, but he saw her eyes widen.  _ Good. _

**[ODA 09:07 PM]:**

_ Show me the rest. _

V’s head snapped up from her phone. She squinted at him suspiciously, but he held steady and only raised a finger in the air, making a slow twirling motion that sent a bolt of heat straight between her legs.  _ Christ. _ She was grateful for the chance to move her face away now; she felt a sudden flush on her cheeks. She slowly turned on one heel, revealing how the snake’s body curved from her hip across her upper thighs under her ass before traveling over the opposite hip and up one side of her back, slithering past her shoulder blade until the tail reached the head of the snake, where it was devoured by the open mouth. By the time she was facing him again, she had schooled a look of cocky indifference onto her face again.

**[ODA 09:08 PM]:**

_ An ouroboros. _

**[V 09:09 PM]:**

_ Birth, life, death, repeat. The transmigration of the soul. _

**[ODA 09:10 PM]:**

_ Fitting. You wear it well. Others? _

Her mouth wanted to smile  _ so badly _ . A quick glance from her under her lashes at him revealed his icy optics studying her with his normal snooty condescension, of course, but also something deeper. More predatory.

**[V 09:11 PM]:**

_ Careful, Oda, you’re gonna make me think _

_ you’re a human with all that sweet talk. :P _

**[V 09:12 PM]:**

_ Yeah, one. _

**[ODA 09:12 PM]:**

_ I don’t see any. _

**[V 09:13 PM]:**

_ You’d definitely need to buy me a drink to see _

_ the other one. Probably several. _

The realization hit him like a punch in the gut; the fact that she was wearing a swimsuit and it still wasn’t visible sent his brain into overdrive, and he couldn’t stop his lips from falling open. He shifted on his feet, trying to casually conceal the half-erection he’d been nursing since she appeared nearly nude in front of him.

**[ODA 09:14 PM]:**

_ Shameless tease. Is that an invitation? _

**[V 09:15 PM]:**

_ Looks like you wish, pretty boy. ; ) _

V thought she had been imagining it at first; he was some distance away from her, after all, and the fluorescent spotlights in the ceiling cast strange shadows on the objects below them. But no—he  _ was  _ turned on; there was no mistaking the slight strain in the crotch of his workout wear. 

She was lucky, of course; there was no visible indicator of how aroused she was, too.  _ Let’s count this as a win, shall we? _

When Oda looked up, she was already headed up the stairs toward the locker rooms. The sway of her hips was mesmerizing, even as he twitched with frustration at the fact that he knew she was swinging them more purposefully than normal.  _ What was going on here? _ He was losing control of the scenario. It was his job to monitor her recovery, and she was convalescing so fast that the second, much harder part of his responsibilities was rearing its ugly head: keep her in line. He was either going to need to double down or rethink his strategy completely.

The rest of his workout was a feeble attempt at completion; it was mostly banging around weight plates and frustrated stomps, his concentration clouded by the situation at hand. V appeared a while later, bag slung over her shoulder and hair wet from her shower. She said nothing and headed straight to the exit, then paused. One of her hands raised a middle finger in his direction—her signature style, he recognized as he rolled his eyes. Then she  _ blew him a kiss with it  _ with such a satisfied smirk on her face that he saw red before she pushed through the doors and disappeared.

Well, now there was no question about his next course of action.

\---

V saw the sleek black box propped up against the door of her apartment and approached cautiously. She was confident she hadn’t received any death threats lately, but you could never be too careful. She saw the Arasaka symbol embossed into the cardboard, but that only made her marginally more comfortable.  _ They're the kind of assholes to gift wrap a pipe bomb. _

She dropped her gym bag on the floor and greeted Nibbles, who wound himself around her legs lovingly. “Let’s see what’s in here, huh, bud?”

She set the box down on her desk, jiggling the top lid off. Nestled inside was a bottle of high-end tequila, even nicer than the stuff she normally drank—and she was no slouch when it came to liquor. It earned a low whistle of approval from her. On top, there was an envelope. She picked it up, running her finger under the glued edge to pop it open and work out the card inside. The message on it, written in a sharp, precise hand, was simple.

_ “Show me the other one.” _


	4. Crave Gets Slaked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> -waves hands- Here's ... something!
> 
> Suggested listening - "Trick of the Light," La Mar

_This tequila is_ good.

V had her questions, of course. The top one was _how had he gotten it here so goddamn fast?_ She had walked home from Arasaka Tower; the weather was nice, and she needed to clear her head from…whatever that had been in the gym. Another important one was _what the hell was she doing?_

She couldn’t answer either one clearly. The picture was nova, though: a thumb hooked into her lacy, black thong, pulling down the side enough to reveal both the delicate tattoo of a violet on her pelvis and the fact that whatever hair she was meant to have there was gone. The bottle of tequila situated in the blurry foreground prevented the sight of anything more than her calculated reveal. She was drunk enough to think it was erotic art—and to press the SEND button.

**[V 11:39 PM]:**

_Can’t wait to see the line item on your expense_

_report for this liquor._

[image]

She meandered her way over to the bed, bottle in her arms like a beautiful, boozy baby. Her body was pleasantly warm and tingly, her brain sloshing around in her head as it moved. It wasn’t until she had been splayed out for a few minutes, thinking about nothing in particular (and certainly not Oda’s arms), that her phone buzzed.

**[ODA 11:45 PM]:**

_Never let it be said I will not buy drinks._

**[V 11:46 PM]:**

_Yes, you can certainly be roped into bad decisions_

_by women with questionable morals, given enough plotting._

**[ODA 11:46 PM]:**

_The trade-off was worth it._

_Hm. Interesting._ V knew she should think something about this. She just wasn’t sure what it was.

**[V 11:47 PM]:**

Your turn, pretty boy. I showed you mine.

**[V 11:47 PM]:**

Do you even have any, or are you too

repressed for that? The “my body is a temple”

kind of shit? :P

**[ODA 11:48 PM]:**

The two are not mutually exclusive.

**[ODA 11:49 PM]:**

[image]

My body is a temple, and I will adorn it as I see fit.

V shot upright, sputtering in disbelief on the sip of tequila she had just taken. She couldn’t see Oda’s face in this picture; rather, she could see the camera on the phone peeking up over his shoulder to reveal his back, the sculpted muscles covered, from the tops of his shoulders down to the hips, with the scales, claws, and crested head of a Japanese dragon, in a palette of blues and striking orange contrasts. The head rested in the space of his right shoulder blade, the body twisting through the middle of his back until it disappeared under the waistband of his pants. Grayscale waves in the traditional style filled in the background, and she saw what she assumed were the delicate pink petals of some cherry blossoms peeking out from some corners. In a way, it wasn’t so different than her own ink serpent.

 _A gorgeous piece of art on a beautiful man._ She was drunk enough to inwardly admit that and not immediately chastise herself. She didn’t even want to write a snarky reply. Couldn’t.

**[V 11:51 PM]:**

_Oda, that’s amazing._

**[V 11:52 PM]:**

_Does it go lower?_

It wasn’t until she read the message back that she realized how forward it might be. _Do I care?_ She did, a little—but probably not enough. It was also probably forward of her to be imagining being wedged between him and his bathroom wall (it looked like that’s where he was, although it was so spartan she could imagine it being a cold, sterile hotel room), watching the painted planes of his back move in the mirror as he…

**[ODA 11:53 PM]:**

_It does. It is not complete._

**[ODA 11:54 PM]:**

_As you can imagine, the practitioners of_

_traditional irezumi are few and far between,_

_even in Japan._

**[V 11:55 PM]:**

_Are you saying you got all that hand-poked?_

_Are you serious? Of course you’re fucking serious._

_Christ_ , he was so fucking hardcore. V wondered if he’d ever smiled a day in his life before that shit-eating grin he had shot her in the elevator. She took another swig of tequila, the liquid courage she needed to finally tell him _exactly_ what she thought about that.

**[V 11:56 PM]:**

_That’s pretty hot._

**[ODA 11:56 PM]:**

_…_

The ellipses to indicate a response being formulated flashed so long that V was certain she had fucked up royally. _Nothing a little more tequila wouldn’t make easier_ . The ache in her center that he had put there earlier in the gym hadn’t dissipated; if anything, it had roared back double-time at the sight of that massive amount of ink. She closed her eyes and set her phone down, trying to breathe deeply and evenly. She knew the rant about how inappropriate she was would come through soon enough. She didn’t want to hear it. She allowed her free hand to trail its fingertips lightly over her stomach, chest, collarbones, and neck, the light sweeping motion producing a small shiver. She did _not_ allow herself to imagine her hand was Oda’s. 

_Buzz._

**[ODA 12:01 AM]:**

_Should I assume that the undergarment I_

_saw earlier is the extent of how clothed you are?_

**[V 12:02 AM]:**

_What’s that got to do with anything?_

**[ODA 12:02 AM]:**

_I wish to know what state I would find you in_

_if I were to appear at your apartment door right now._

Her brain was thick with alcohol and confusion. _There wasn’t any reason to lie, was there?_ She couldn’t think of one.

**[V 12:02 AM]:**

_… then yes._

**[ODA 12:03 AM]:**

_You would just answer the door like that, wouldn’t you?_

_Shameless. On display before I even stepped inside._

**[V 12:04 AM]:**

_Don’t act like you wouldn’t like it._

_This is unexpected._ She wasn’t sure what to do about it, other than to touch herself a little more firmly; she curled her free hand around a breast, absentmindedly kneading and teasing the nipple while her eyes stayed glued on her phone screen. She felt hot, ready to crawl out of her skin, and was pretty sure it wasn’t all from the tequila.

**[ODA 12:05 AM]:**

_And if I wanted to correct your behavior with my_

_mouth on your neck, your shoulders, your chest, your_

_stomach right there in plain view of the hallway?_

**[ODA 12:06 AM]:**

_You would allow it, wouldn’t you?_

**[V 12:08 AM]:**

_You wouldn’t, you’re not into that. The bed is only_

_20 feet away._

**[ODA 12:09 AM]:**

_Do not presume to tell me what I may or_

_may not want to do, brat._

A soft gasp fell from her lips at the word; she could hear him growling it in her head. Her hand wandered downward, tracing along the seam of her panties between her legs. The fabric was damp already. 

**[ODA 12:10 AM]:**

_Is that where you are now? Sprawled naked_

_in bed with your tequila like wanton trash?_

**[V 12:11 AM]:**

_Yes._

**[ODA 12:12 AM]:**

_Are you touching yourself?_

Complicated. She _had been_ , but not in the way she thought he meant. And she hadn’t ventured any further than that, somewhat miraculously. She typed “Not yet” and stared at the words before deleting them. 

**[V 12:13 AM]:**

_No._

**[ODA 12:14 AM]:**

_Do so, and prove it._

A breathy, excited giggle escaped V as she slid her hand inside her panties, snapping a sloppy picture of it obscured by the fabric, framed by her spread thighs.

**[V 12:15 AM]:**

[image]

She tried to think of a pithy follow-up, but the demand to touch herself took precedence. She was so wet, fingers slipping easily between her folds to trace over her clit. She groaned quietly; she hadn’t had the energy or the urge, honestly, for much self-pleasure since her reboot. She wasn’t sure if it was because the body didn’t feel like her own, there wasn’t anyone in her life that made her want to touch herself, or both. _This_ , though, explicit instruction from the most unexpected of places—it was _doing it_ for her. She was curious if Oda was touching himself as well. She hadn’t been the only one hot and bothered in the gym.

**[ODA 12:17 AM]:**

[image]

_Look what your teasing does to me._

He was in her head again; she stared at a photo of his erection straining against the thin fabric of cotton lounge pants. The outline of his fingers wrapped around it were visible. _Christ, was her mouth watering?_

**[ODA 12:18 AM]:**

_Are you wet for me? If I wanted push your legs_

_apart and sink two fingers into you, would they slide_

_deep inside from your eagerness?_

She didn’t need to try it to know the answer, but she sure did anyway, pressing the swell of her palm against her clit as she worked the digits in and out. It was so intense that her legs were already shaking, sweat beading on her forehead as she whimpered. It was mere minutes before she was trembling on the edge of her new body’s first climax, rocking her hips against her hand in a search for more friction.

And then her holo rang. She barely emerged from the cloud of alcohol and arousal fast enough to turn the video feature off before it auto-answered. “It’s V.” _That didn’t sound too breathless._ There was only a black screen in front of her eyes; the other person had their screen off as well.

“You didn’t answer me. Do not make me repeat myself.” _Oh, shit._ A choked noise escaped her mouth before she could clamp her lips down around it. Her hand, which had politely paused its ministrations, began its activity again unbidden, forcing another whimper from her before she could manage a reply.

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“YesImwetforyou.” She rushed the words out in a shaky breath, the sound of saying them aloud forcing a bright flush along her cheeks. She wasn’t the kind of person that was embarrassed easily, but she felt almost as wanton as Oda seemed to think she was. Her hips were practically bucking against her own hand as she chased her release. _Maybe I am_.

“Are you close?” His voice was lust and gravel, ragged against her ear. She thought he might be breathing hard, but it was difficult to tell over the huffs of her own rapid exhalations. “Are you going to come apart around your own fingers, thinking of me touching you?”

It was a needy whine that came out this time. “Yes, please yes.”

“Yes, who?”

 _Oh, Christ._ “Yes, Oda-ah!” The last syllable of his name became a shout as the thread snapped, sending a wave of pleasure rushing outward from her middle into her limbs and out her fingertips. Her center and core clenched hard, curling her body inward on itself as she continued to wring the sensations out with her hand. It was only when the broken cries had stopped escaping from her mouth and she lay exhausted on the mattress that he spoke again.

“Good girl.” The call cut out.

\---

Oda disconnected the holo without saying goodbye, freeing his straining erection from the confines of his pants and closing his fist around it in earnest, a low groan of satisfaction escaping him. He dared not get too carried away while texting V, relegated to palming himself firmly over the fabric as he urged her further toward the edge. But now? His strokes were hard and rough as he stared, slack-jawed, at the reflection in the bathroom mirror. His gaze locked onto where his hand was working himself over, picturing her smart mouth wrapped around his length, on her knees in front of him. 

He finished hard and sooner than he expected, spilling over his hand and fingers with a rough grunt, twitching as he quickly became sensitive. He rested his forehead against the cool surface of the mirror as he ran the sink and cleaned up. 

He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about that damned second tattoo. He needed to _know_ the ways she had marked her body as her own. It had only taken a phone call before a courier was in the gym in front of him with a gift box of alcohol and card to be filled. Oda didn’t utilize the partner appreciation stock regularly, but he had certainly been glad of it then. 

Her picture had still been a surprise, both in content and the fact that she sent it at all. He kept expecting her to back down—there is no way she would win this strange battle of sexual warfare, he was confident of that—

His phone buzzed.

**[V 12:32 AM]:**

[video]

A Japanese curse fell sharply from his lips. V was glassy-eyed and wild-haired in the frame, a flush high on her cheeks as she held up the two fingers he just _knew_ had been inside her; he could see them still glistening with moisture. He watched as she dipped them into a glass of what he was sure was the tequila he had sent and raised them to her mouth, running her tongue over them lewdly before sliding them inside her mouth and sucking them clean. She pulled her middle finger out last; he watched it leave her lips with a wet pop before it became her signature goodbye gesture for him. Then the video cut, looping back to the beginning. _That whore had put it on auto-play._

Let it play Oda did, watching until he felt his cock twitch in renewed interest. He rolled his eyes at his own foolishness, padding into the bedroom and flopping onto his back on top of the covers. He willed his erection to subside. It did not listen. He sighed as he closed his hand around himself once more.

_He had underestimated her again._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote the description of Oda's tattoo completely organically, _then_ googled tattoos and [this](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/bf/39/b5/bf39b57ea2d1df6fec540784e5ddfe88.jpg) was the first result that popped up. So good for me, I guess. xD


	5. I'll Turn You Out In Kind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This Goro is puckish af.
> 
> Suggested listening: "Daddy," Ramsey

**[GORO 09:46 AM]:**

_ The silver fox raises its tail in  _

_ greeting to the little serpent. _

**[V 09:47 AM]:**

_ Either you’re getting worse at those _

_ or I’m getting better at deciphering them. _

**[V 09:47 AM]:**

_ Or both. : ) _

**[GORO 09:48 AM]:**

_ You are a spoilsport.  _

**[GORO 09:48 AM]:**

_ Oda tells me your recuperation is proceeding _

_ at an extraordinary pace. _

**[GORO 09:49 AM]:**

_ He has recommended that your final _

_ physical evaluation be scheduled early. _

**[V 09:50 AM]:**

That’s news to me.

**[V 09:51 AM]:**

_ Can’t wait for the day his face doesn’t _

_ ruin mine three times a week. _

**[GORO 09:52 AM]:**

_ V, Do not be cruel. Oda is _

_ an upstanding man who has worked _

_ very hard to see you recover. _

**[V 09:53 AM]:**

_ If he weren’t getting paid for it, _

_ he’d have zeroed me already and tossed _

_ me into the tower incinerator. _

**[GORO 09:54 AM]:**

_ It’s a good thing he’s being compensated, then. _

**[GORO 09:55 AM]:**

_ Now please send me a picture of Nibbles-chan. _

_ I need to make sure he is well. _

**[V 09:57 AM]:**

[image]

**[GORO 09:58 AM]:**

_ Magnificent. Please rub his belly for me, _

_ and make sure you have care arranged  _

_ for him for your trip. _

**[V 09:59 AM]:**

_ My trip? Goro, really?! _

**[GORO 10:00 AM]:**

_ You’ll be cleared for travel, and then _

_ you’ll finally know the sweet taste _

_ of actual food. : ) _

\---

_ It had been a month since they started beating the shit out of each other. Oda had insisted after V laid a lithe Arasaka employee named Mari out on her back in under 30 seconds for the third time in a row.  _

_ She had offered her hand to the girl on the floor, who took it with a forgiving smile so they could clear the mats for the next sparring pair. Then she had seen Oda out of the corner of her vision, tucked back against the wall behind the line of mats where duos of partners were practicing hand-to-hand combat under the watchful eye of Arasaka supervisors. He would have been a ghost were it not for those ice blue optics burning a hole into her.  _

_ “Arigato, Mari-san,” she said to her partner, offering a goodbye head nod to indicate she would not be rejoining her in the line for the mat. _

_ “Until next time, V-san!” The girl plucked a towel off a supply table, and V mimicked her, wiping down as she went in the opposite direction towards the locker room. _

**[ODA 4:15 PM]:**

_ You are too advanced for these casual matches. _

**[V 04:15 PM]:**

_ Hello to you, too. :P _

**[V 04:16 PM]:**

_ How do you know that? You’ve just seen me  _

_ spar with Mari. _

**[ODA 04:17 PM]:**

_ Mari-san is the most advanced opponent of the group _

_ by a large margin.  _

**[ODA 04:18 PM]:**

_ We can train when I have time in the evenings. _

**[V 04:19 PM]:**

_ There are easier ways to get me on my back, Oda. _

**[ODA 04:20 PM]:**

_ I do not doubt that list is long. I enjoy a _

_ challenge, however. _

\---

“Again.”

“No. I won’t let you abuse me like this any more.”

Oda  _ tsk _ ed impatiently at her from where he stood, towering above her as she laid spread-eagle on the mat. “If you would really like abuse, I will stop holding back.”

“Fuck you,” V grumbled as she rolled to her side and pushed herself up to standing with a pained grunt. She took her time walking back to the edge of the mat, pacing in a couple extra circles to shake out the absolute pummeling she’d been taking tonight. Oda hadn’t seemed any different than his normal uncaring, stuck-up self, but the way he was throwing her around like a rag doll told a different story. “What’s your damage tonight, pretty boy? You’re a grumpy little guy.”

“Shut your mouth,” he snapped at her. “Your evaluation is in two days, and if you pass, this months-long torture will finally subside.” She had barely resumed her default stance before he rushed at her, coming in hard with his right shoulder. She juked, dodging fast enough to bring her elbow sharply into his kidney as he brushed by. He grunted, spinning and catching the arm she had thrown tightly. She was whipped around to face him and took a sock right in the gut; she hadn’t been protecting herself there. She doubled over with the force and gasped for air, scrabbling at his torso with her arms in an attempt to wrench him down. Oda was too quick; he had already hooked his foot around one calf, bringing her tumbling to her knees. A second later and he had his fist firmly around her ponytail, yanking it back hard enough to make her eyes water; it forced her chin into the air so her vision was filled with his glowering face. 

“Torture, huh?” V gritted it out between her teeth, scalp smarting from the tension of his grip. He was holding her there on purpose, keeping her mouth inches from where she was pretty sure he actually wanted it wide open and stuffed full. “Seems like you’re having a hell of a  _ hard _ time, you’re right.” She would wink if she was sure he wouldn’t poke one of her optics right out of its socket. He didn’t say anything, but the roll of his eyes was loud enough; it was accompanied by a huff of breath as he gave her head another rough shake.

It had been this way since the night with the tequila, a snake slithering along a razor’s edge of desire. He had been  _ meaner  _ the next time she had seen him, which had immediately turned her into a bitch. All of their sparring matches ended up in blood or bruises, or both. Their texts during the day had devolved, consisting almost entirely of rude epithets and increasingly creative ways to flip each other off (although she would say most of the outside-the-box gesturing had come from her.)

The texts at night, though …

It wasn’t always as full-on as the first time. Sometimes it was only a sentence or two.  _ Show me your spread legs. Do not come until I say so.  _ Other times, it was just a picture; she knew exactly how far down his tattoo went now, and he was familiar with exactly how she propped her leg up in the shower while she touched herself. Once it had been a call with no actual words spoken, just harsh breaths and quiet moans until they fell apart one after the other, hanging up without even saying good night.

It wasn’t every night, either. It was just infrequent enough that she had been consistently sleeping like shit, laying in her bed already half-aroused, anxious for the buzz of her phone. It was almost always Oda who took it there first. He had been receptive the once or twice she had started things, but she got the sense that the initiation was part of the thrill for him.  _ Fucking control freak.  _ She didn’t need to wonder if the power struggle was part of the formula; she knew it was, because it got her off, too.  _ We both need therapy _ .

And so they spent a long minute just like that: her kneeling in front of him, eyes locked on one another above and below, shoulders rising and falling with heavy breaths from their efforts. He didn’t stop her as V leaned forward those last precious inches, catching a string from his waistband tie in between her teeth. She sat back just as slowly, watching his eyes fixate on the way the knot went taut and then slowly came apart. The fabric of the waistband shifted infinitesimally lower on his hips. The fist around her hair loosened its grip.

_ Now. _

Her arms shot out and hooked around Oda’s knees, yanking hard and launching her weight forward to free her head from his grip. She heard the “oof” as he hit the ground hard on his ass and the grunt as she pushed forcefully on his chest. Clambering to close her thighs around his middle, she pinned one of his arms awkwardly underneath her leg and had the other secured above his head in both her fists a moment later.

_ God, I wish I could take a picture of his face right now.  _ He was a wild animal cornered, eyes wide with rage and surprise. His teeth were bared in a growl, and she could feel his hot, angry breath in her face. She tried her best to fight the shit-eating grin that was coming on and only halfway succeeded, turning it into a close-lipped smirk. 

“That’s enough  _ torture _ for tonight, don’t you think?”

“Whore.” There was no missing the way her cheeks flushed and the grin dropped off her face, lips parting in surprise and something heavier. His wrist sprung free of her grasp in her distraction; she barely had time to register the loss before his fingers were around her throat. 

The pressure of his strong hand curled around her neck had wiped any coherent thought from her mind. V needed to get off of him  _ now _ or he would know exactly what this was doing to her. She suspected he already did.

The second he felt her weight shift, Oda sent her tumbling off of him, letting go of her neck so he didn’t wrench that sassy mouth down to his. He drew his knees up as he sat, desperately trying to hide his arousal. They were the only people in the facility currently, but he couldn’t believe she had lured him into being so brazen.  _ Filthy temptress. _ She was hauling herself to her feet and walking toward the stairs without looking back. He considered chasing her, but decided against it. Her evaluation was in two days. He just had to make it two days, and then this bizarre game of chess that had all but consumed him would be over.

Several minutes later, he was taking his frustration out on the bench press. The red-tinted haze was beginning to recede from his brain when his phone buzzed.

**[V 08:58 PM]:**

[image]

Oda hissed through his teeth, quickly making the screen go dark.  _ She was touching herself in the shower upstairs.  _ He pressed his forehead to the cool metal of the machine, grateful for the temperate comfort. He thought his blood might be boiling. 

_ Two more days. _

\---

“Ms. V? Please step onto the mat when you are ready.”

_ I will never be ready, Ito-san! _ It’s what she wanted to yell, but instead she inclined her head to indicate her understanding. They really should have ordered this evaluation better; why did she have to fight after the stress test, the push-ups, and all the other things? She was sweaty and tired, and the sparring opponent in front of her on the mat had struck…something in addition to fear into her very center. She was sure it had to do with the messy bun of his hair and the fact that he’d  _ taken his fucking shirt off _ . _ Did he want her to fail? _

Ito-san and several of the doctors from her other evaluations were gathered around, along with some people in suits she didn’t recognize. She could see another figure far away towards the door observing as well. 

She walked onto the mat and to the edge of the sparring circle, flexing her wrists to make sure her tape still felt secure. Oda offered her the bare minimum of bow required to be socially acceptable, and she returned it stiffly. Two-minute rounds; three rounds total. The goal wasn’t to win, they had told her; they were just evaluating her progress—which was total bullshit.

They circled each other cautiously; V’s hands protecting her face in classic boxer fashion, Oda’s more relaxed in front of his body. The air between them crackled with electricity; his face was even more unreadable than usual. He paused.

_ Wait, did he just wink— _

He had broken her guard and landed a blow across the face before she could finish her thought, reeling from the sting of it. She barely got an arm up in time to block the next swing, holding him open long enough to whack him a good one on the ribs. He didn’t even flinch; the next thing she knew, he had physically lifted her from the floor and slammed her down onto the mat. His forearm pressed against her windpipe and she only flailed a little before slapping his arm with the universal non-verbal sign of surrender.

She scrambled out from under him as soon as he relented, glaring daggers at him and the tiny twitch of his lips she was sure everyone else missed. She wanted nothing more than to charge him—but no.  _ That’s what he wanted. _ So she drew her hands up into a defensive stance, hiding her face enough that she could catch Oda’s eye and bite the air at him teasingly. His eyes narrowed at her and he took the bait, advancing forward and striking out. She dodged once, slapped him away twice, and went in hard around his middle. The force of the blow sent his foot back a step and she seized on it, hooking his ankle with her own. His weight hit the mat and she moved to grab an arm, yanking it upward as she twisted her pelvis and closed her thighs around his neck. She squeezed against the metal plates of his cybernetics;  _ you probably can’t make him pass out, but if you can just hold him tight enough— _

V felt the surrender slaps on her leg moments later; a smile broke across her face before she could stop it, uncrossing her knees and letting him roll away. Both of their chests were heaving as they faced each other again.

“Ms. V? We find this demonstration sufficient, thank you.”

She blanked at Oda; he had the same slightly bemused expression she felt on her own face. She offered a bow and he returned a cursory one, watching as the doctors and suits all nodded at them politely before shuffling away, whispering quietly among themselves. Oda gathered up his things and made to follow them, but the figure that had been lurking in the corner revealed themselves.

“Please stay, Oda-kun. I wish to speak with both you and V.”

The joy that poured into V at the sound was so pure her heart hurt with it. A laugh tore out of her throat as she bolted across the gym, launching herself, sweat and all, into the man’s arms.

“Goro!”

The older man seemed shocked only for half a moment, bracing himself expertly to absorb the weight of V’s affection. If he minded her current state, he certainly didn’t show it; he wrapped his arms around her and returned her hug with somewhat more reserved affection.

“Hello, little serpent. I am glad to see you.” She pulled back after a long moment, only barely stopping herself from touching his warmly-smiling face. She wanted to scream; she wanted to cry; she wanted to kiss him; she wanted to never let him go. He felt like the closest thing she had to home.

An uncomfortable cough prevented her from doing any of those things, and she reluctantly let the older man go so he could bow in greeting to his student. “Oda-kun.”

“Takemura-san. I was not aware you would be in Night City.”

“I promised V a visit to Japan once her body was cleared for international travel, and when you informed me her evaluation was being scheduled early, I decided I needed to see this fearsome monster that had been shaped for myself.” Goro’s silver-rimmed optics twinkled at her even though his face was serious. “Surely after that performance, all clearances will be granted. I am very impressed.”

“Thank you.” “Thank you.”

V narrowed her eyes at Oda; why was  _ he  _ saying thank you? Sure, he had helped some, but all the hard work had been  _ hers. _ Oda had only been a minor annoyance and a major pain in the cunt. 

“V, are you packed?” The master had already turned his attention back to her; she could feel Oda’s piercing gaze burning into her back as he watched them. 

“Packed? Oh, shit, you mean we’re leaving, like, right now?”

“Not at this very moment, but I’ve arranged a jet for this evening, provided you are granted the appropriate permissions.” Goro’s attention shifted to Oda. “I know Hanako-sama will be glad to have you back, Oda-kun.”

It must have been the right words; Oda seemed to soften slightly at the thought. “I am eager to return home.” A tiny pang of guilt pinched V’s brain. He had been here basically all by himself for 6 months because of her stupid new meatsack. She should…thank him or something. Maybe.

“Time is wasting,” Goro said to them both. “Meet me here in the lobby at 7 PM and we’ll travel to the airport together.”

V was so excited she didn’t even mind that Oda was coming with them. “Goro, are you sure—”

“Keep asking me and I will find ample reason to change my mind. Now go.” He must have been more pleased to see her than he let on; to emphasize his point, he smacked V playfully but firmly on the ass in a get-along-now motion. She squealed in delight and shuffled off toward the locker room, ignoring Oda’s baffled expression.

For the first time in this new body, V felt happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to @postmodernsleaze, @ScorpioInk, and all my babes on the Lizzie's server for letting me yell at you guys about sexual epithets. :D


	6. Gonna Teach You Tricks That Will Blow Your Mongrel Mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PUT AWAY YOUR PITCHFORKS, Y'ALL! 
> 
> Suggested listening: "Come Undone," Carina Round

**[** **V 05:31 PM]:**

_ Hey, Barry, it’s V. Can I ask you to do  _

_ me a huge solid? _

**[BARRY 05:32 PM]:**

_ Sure thing. What is it? _

**[V 05:34 PM]:**

_ I’ve gotta delta for a while, and I’m not sure _

_ how long I’ll be gone. A week, at least. Can _

_ you keep an eye on Nibbles for me? _

_ Food once a day, clean the litter, maybe hang _

_ out a little and give him some pets once or  _

_ twice? _

**[BARRY 05:36 PM]:**

_ Sure thing, V. He’s safe with me. : ) _

**[V 05:37 PM]:**

_ Thanks, buddy, I owe ya one. Door code _

_ is 111688. _

_ What do people even wear in Japan? _ V had only had the smallest crisis while shoving her bag full of clothes, shoes, toiletries, and weapons (sure, they might take them from her, but she wasn’t going to leave Night City without her favorite pistol). If she was way off base, she could always go shopping.

She knew Goro well enough to know that travel would be an occasion for dressing the part—perception is reality, blah blah blah. She wasn’t an employee, but she wasn’t exactly  _ not  _ an employee. She had settled on a simple black dress with a high neck; it was knee length with a side-spit that wasn’t too scandalous if she didn’t walk like someone was chasing her.  _ Old habits die hard.  _ By the time she was done pulling her hair back into a low ponytail and slapping on just enough makeup that she didn’t look like she had briefly been a corpse six months ago, V thought she looked presentable.  _ Maybe even like a corpo, if you squinted. _

“Nibs, Barry is going to keep you company while I’m gone, okay?” He blinked up at her with his big saucer eyes and butted his head against her hand, accepting some chin scratches before going back to snoozing in his laundry basket. V left before she changed her mind and tried to curl up with him.

\---

_ She looked…different. _

Oda did his best not to stare as V strolled toward him in the lobby, but it was one of the harder things he’d done that week. He only ever saw her in workout clothes and…less. It felt like a lifetime ago since he’d seen her in normal street clothes, underneath that bridge by the water or in the warehouse.  _ It had been a lifetime ago. _

“You rolling BD of me just walking? Whatever you’re into, choom,” she shot at him by way of greeting. Any flutter of feelings other than annoyance disappeared; his eyes rolled unbidden, a Pavlovian response she elicited. He opened his mouth to respond but didn’t get any actual words out.

“V, have you been like this for five months? No wonder Oda-kun is ready to go home.” She had been right. Goro was dressed all in black, looking as refined and dangerous as she’d ever seen him.

“Every single day without ceasing,” Oda replied. His tone was casual but she could hear the edge of irritation in the response. It made her heart swell with pride.  _ That’s probably not normal. _

“Naughty girl,” Goro didn’t even bother to direct the words at her; he already had her bag in one hand and was walking back outdoors. “Come. Home awaits.”

\---

**[ODA 11:13 PM]:**

_ If you do not stop tapping your  _

_ foot on my seat, I will not be  _

_ responsible for my actions. _

The companionable silence that had descended on the three of them shortly after takeoff was a surprise, albeit not an unwelcome one. They had sunk into the supple leather seats like a line of good little soldiers: Oda behind Goro, V behind Oda. She had slipped her shoes off her feet to draw little circles in the carpet with her toes; it was plusher than possibly any other surface she’d been on in her life. She wondered if this was just how it was when you worked for Arasaka, or if this was a direct result of Goro’s pulling rank. 

She hadn’t noticed that she had been twitching her toes against the back of Oda’s seat until her phone buzzed. An impish smile worked its way onto her face; if he wanted her to stop, that was the worst possible thing to say.  _ Oh, Oda.  _ She ignored the way that thought echoed through her brain with something approaching fondness and instead started pushing more firmly, never more than a few times in one spot before moving slightly.

**[V 11:15 PM]:**

_ What are you gonna do? Break _

_ my ankle and you’ll just be stuck with my _

_ rehab even longer, pretty boy. :P _

He hadn’t made a move or a noise, but she could  _ feel  _ that he was getting more annoyed with each press of her toes. Her seat was comfortable; she could reach his without straining.  _ She could do this all night.  _ Then her body was jerked forward sharply, a quiet squeak escaping her as the shift in weight forced the footrest of her chair—which was apparently a recliner—to slide out and support her body. Oda had her leg in an iron grip on his armrest, fingers curled around her ankle firmly. She jerked against him and met only unforgiving resistance; she heard a quiet, throaty chuckle. Her mouth was dry suddenly; why did her pulse just quicken?

**[ODA 11:18 PM]:**

_ I can hear your pouting, brat. _

_ Shit. _ Surely he wouldn’t—not while— _ would he? _ V tried to still her breath enough to listen for Goro’s, but it was pointless. She hoped he was sleeping, for his sake; she appreciated that a plane with just the three of them might be a place he felt safe enough to do so. The only other cold comfort she could provide herself, even as she hiked her skirt up and snapped a picture of the juncture of her thighs, was that Oda would never risk anything unsavory unless he was certain he wouldn’t be caught.

**[V 11:19 PM]:**

[image]

Tiny bites of pain pricked on her leg after she heard his phone vibrate; he was digging his fingers into her skin. It was her turn to laugh under her breath and this time when she tried to pull her leg back, he mercifully let it go so she could straighten her chair and stand up.

Her bare feet made no noise on the carpet as she stalked to the back of the cabin, the door to the galley sliding soundlessly so she could step through and leave it open by an inch. She didn’t have a plan; she didn’t know if he would take the bait. Maybe this had all been a fun experiment to fall asleep less alone and face-to-face was only for violence and condescension.

V pressed her forehead against the slim steel fridge tucked into the corner, unaware of how flushed she had actually become until the cool metal touched her face.

“Don’t. Move.” 

She was suddenly  _ surrounded _ by Oda; the hiss of his words sounded like the imaginary sizzle of her scorching skin as he pressed more of her up against the cold surface. She couldn’t stop the whimper that slipped out of her mouth as his hand grabbed her hip with the same intensity he had been holding her leg. His face was buried in the crook of her neck; he inhaled sharply, and she could feel his smile on her skin.”Oda—”

“Shut your mouth or I will shut it for you.” The delicious threat disappeared into her neck as he spoke it.The hand that wasn’t anchoring her was clawing at her roughly, grabbing handfuls of the soft flesh of her thigh and ass, rucking her dress up until it bunched around her hips. His fingers slid boldly between her legs and under her panties, and she heard that same chuckle that lit her on fire a few minutes ago sound hot in her ear.

“So eager and desperate for me already,” he murmured; it was supposed to be derisive but V could hear his own excitement underneath, and could certainly feel it pressing against her backside. He was running feather-light touches from her entrance to her clit and back again, never lingering long enough for any sensation to actually build. She whined again, pleading, and his hand let go of her hip to clamp itself over her mouth.

“I said quiet, tart,” but then he pushed a finger inside her at the same time, and she had to choke out a moan against his palm. It was quickly joined by another and her body betrayed her, giving up a full-body shiver as he began to move them expertly inside her. Her knees were threatening to buckle already; her hands left the fridge to scrabble at his arm for balance. He was in her head as he always seemed to be, tipping her head back against his shoulder gently, freeing his arm to curl around her waist in support.

“Now I want you to come and do it silently, do you understand me?” Oda added his thumb into the devilish mix, pressing firm circles against her throbbing bundle of nerves. She jerked her head in assent, breath hitching raggedly as his fingers curled insider her harder. She braced herself against the fridge again as the white-hot thread pulled tighter, the other hand curling its fingers desperately between his own on her waist. She was rocking against his hand now, wantonly chasing relief. There was a flick of this thumb once, twice—the hot, wet heat of his tongue,  _ licking _ along her jaw lewdly—and V surrendered to his demand. Every nerve sparked in a wave spiraling out from her center, sharp and sweet; she trembled against him, silent screams caught in her throat, as he worked the waves out of her until she was mumbling for him to wait, stop,  _ please, Oda. _

He was high on adrenaline and power; her falling apart in his arms was more intoxicating than any alcohol he’d ever had in his life. Some hazy part of his logical brain understood that this was very risky indeed; that it was unwise to escalate what they’d been parties to any further; that it was far more advisable for him to forget about her the moment they stepped off the plane.

But they were still on the plane right now, and his lizard brain fixated on the vision of her licking his fingers clean while he marked her, however temporarily. Why the sudden appearance of his master had sharpened this desire was best unpacked another time. 

He pulled his fingers out of her, and the departure made a wet sound that sent his eyes into the back of his head. They were in her mouth before she could say anything and she sucked instinctively; the fact that she didn’t need any instruction on what he wanted  _ shouldn’t be so fucking hot. _

Once he was certain her knees would hold her, the hand around her middle withdrew to impatiently work at his belt buckle and zipper, his erection springing free. He was dripping pre-come and already on the edge. He smeared it over his head before he closed a hand around himself with a desperate groan, working fast and rough while his eyes locked onto the smooth expanse of flesh revealed from pushing up her dress, the swell of her ass beckoning him to stake his claim. He felt the sting of teeth on his fingertips, accepting her silent encouragement and painting her backside with hot ropes of release. His hips bucked from the force of it, knocking against her as his hand stuttered to a stop. The sight of V, whom he knew to be a formidable fighter and deviously talented netrunner, flush-faced and shaking, his fingers caught between her lips and his spend on her skin—Oda thought he might die from the satisfaction of it. He already knew he wanted more.

The towels for ice buckets were blessedy within arms’ reach in the compact gallery; V didn’t even think to spit his fingers out of her mouth until she realized he was gently cleaning her up and shuffling her dress back down over her legs. The time of one or two deep, steadying breaths was all the time he needed to right himself and slink away; when she turned around, he was already back in the main cabin and sinking into his seat. She hadn’t even seen his face.

She wobbled back on boneless legs, grateful for the sound-dampening carpet. Her eyes were closed almost as soon as her head touched the headrest.

\---

“V, wake—”

Her hand shot out, striking blindly at the threat before her eyes opened from slumber. A quick hand snatched her wrist away from the face it belonged to.

“We are landing soon, little serpent,” offered Goro, nodding slightly in silent approval at her reflexes. “Your strike was true.”

“Aw, shit, sorry, Goro.” She pulled her arm back and shook her head to clear it, ruffling her hair in her fingers. She grinned up at him apologetically. “That was a preem nap. Did you sleep okay?”

“What makes you think I slept?” His silver optics studied her carefully. A hard swallow pushed down the sudden lump in her throat.

_ We made sure you were before Oda wrecked me in the galley.  _ “Just a long flight, that’s all.”  _ Fuck, don’t blush, what is wrong with you?! _

“Indeed. I do hope you found a satisfying way to pass the time.”

_ Christ on a bike.  _ He knew. There’s no way he didn’t know. His supersonic hearing and how well he had learned her face left her with little doubt. As did the tiny smirk that tugged at his lips as he returned to his seat.

_ Shit. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, @tinmunky, @postmodernsleaze, and @shenanigan_manifesto for letting me yell at you about things while I freak out about the monster this fic has become! <3


	7. Babydoll, I Recognize You're A Hideous Thing Inside

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WOOF.
> 
> Suggested listening: "If I Was Your Lover," Elektrik People

**[V 05:40 PM]:**

_Are you sure I have to go to this_

_thing, Goro? I have a handle on what_

_it’s like to sell your soul to a corp._

**[GORO 05:41 PM]:**

_Hanako-sama requested specifically that we_

_take you along with us. She suspects you may_

_have a…warped perspective on traditional_

_Arasaka employment._

**[GORO 05:42 PM]:**

_I know your feelings on this are complex,_

_V, but she has done much for you. It is not_

_a particularly troublesome request to fulfill._

**[V 05:43 PM]:**

[image]

_Is this okay to wear? You know all my other_

_stuff has holes and fishnet stockings and shit._

It was the outfit V had bought to talk to Hanako at Embers; even then she had known that looking the part was important. It was a black sleeveless cropped top and skirt number with delicate lines of gold trim that accented the natural curves of her body. The hem of the skirt fell beneath her knees but sported another high slit to mid-thigh. She had brought her only pair of heels with her, pointy black stilettos that made her want to murder someone after an alarmingly short period time wearing them. 

She had at least been able to sneak in a nap after she had been shown to a swank short-term housing unit on Arasaka property. The great white cloud of the comforter had beckoned her down onto it the second she had walked into the spacious studio; her bag hadn’t made it past the couch, but she had remembered to remove her shoes before stepping up off the tiny sunken entranceway. No one would have known, but she thought she ought to do it anyway.

**[GORO 05:45 PM]:**

_Perfectly lovely. I would recommend wearing_

_your hair down, if I may be so bold._

**[V 05:46 PM]:**

_Only if you wear yours down, too. :P_

**[GORO 05:47 PM]:**

_Do not be preposterous. I like it when you_

_have your hair loose. It hides your_

_deadliness, not unlike a camouflaged snake._

**[V 05:58 PM]:**

_Alright, flatterer. I can take a hint._

**[GORO 05:59 PM]:**

_Excellent. The car will be there at 7._

She wasn’t about to refuse Goro anything and he damn well knew it. She grumbled her way through curling her hair and a concentrated effort on less blaringly-obvious makeup: softly smoked instead of sharply winged, just-bitten stained instead of boldly painted. Save the knife tucked into her hip pocket with her phone and lipstick (old habits die hard), she looked every bit the part he and Oda wanted her to play. The part he and Oda wanted her to _be_. 

\---

She spotted Goro first, the streaks of silver at his temples highlighting him in a crowd of dark heads of hair. He was dressed all in white, as she had seen him do before, and it didn’t make the sight any less breathtaking. He smiled approvingly as the bodies shifted so she could make her way over to him, prompting her to giggle and pirouette on one toe as she approached him.

“Did I do okay? Are they gonna kick me out for being Night-City-street-rat trash?”

“You have fooled them all, little serpent,” he replied amicably, nabbing a champagne flute off a passing tray with an almost-invisible flick of the wrist, handing it to her. “Here.”

It was cold, sweet with a tangy edge, and bubbly, the opposite of everything V was feeling right now. It took all her control not to neck it and then ask for about four more. “Are you not having anything?”

“I cannot in my official capacity,” he replied. “I am technically here as your escort, although I have been instructed to encourage you to mingle. Oda is free to imbibe, however.”

 _Ugh_ . “Is he here?” Her head darted back and forth, but the press of employees was impressive. She saw baby-faced workers that couldn’t be much older than 18, gathered in flocks on opposite sides of the dance floor; there were middle-aged career people relaxed and chatting at tables around the room; still further off, she spotted the young professionals, gathered around one end of the bar, fluttering around cocktail tables. It was there that she spotted him; he wore the same dark suit he had worn on the plane, his hair pulled back off his face in a bun not dissimilar to Goro’s, although a few wisps at the front had escaped. The piercing blue of his eyes and sharp line where his jaw met his cybernetics was clearly visible. _You would have to be blind to not know he was beautiful._ There was that voice again. Annoying.

It was there that the similarities ended to the Oda she knew, however; he was currently surrounded by no fewer than five petite, doll-eyed Arasaka employees, and they all seemed to be vying for his attention in equal measure. She saw his lips move and the flock burst into coy laughter simultaneously. She watched him knock back the rest of a champagne flute with a resigned sigh; he would clearly rather be doing just about anything else. The girls didn’t seem to notice, and she saw him pause almost imperceptibly. His eyes were locked on hers across the room in her next breath, and she couldn’t help but feel a pang of sympathy (and that’s _all_ it was, sympathy) at his obvious discomfort. She altered her grip just slightly on her glass, raising it to her lips so her extended middle finger was clear to him as she took a sip.

He smiled and V felt it like a sock in the gut. Her eyes ripped themselves away to look anywhere else and ran right into Goro’s instead, who was studying her very carefully. _Can’t catch a break from either side_.

“Arasaka…strongly encourages attendance at these functions for employees that are of a certain age or _predisposition_ , shall we say,” he explained, as if he hadn’t just watched his pupil and his other pupil eye-fuck each other across the room. She blinked at him incredulously, turning the phrase over in her mind before the implication clunked into place.

“Christ, Goro, they even try to keep the _fucking_ in-house?” Her face puckered like she’d eaten something sour. She chugged the rest of her drink to cover up the bad taste the revelation left in her mouth.

“Come, V, let us dance.” _What?_ How far was she supposed to push herself out of her comfort zone tonight? But Goro’s hand was already on the small of her back, steering her towards the parqueted wood. The music was proper, inoffensive; there were several other couples floating gracefully around the floor. 

“Goro, there’s no pole, I don’t know what—”

“If you can fight, you can dance,” he said in that way that meant there was no room for argument, and so she heaved a sigh and let herself be pulled into him, tentatively placing her hand on his shoulder in what she desperately hoped was the right place. His hand closed around hers on the opposite. “Just follow my lead.”

If there was anyone she would follow willingly any more, it was Goro, and he was right: whether it was because they had fought together or because they had fucked, it was easy to read his body and move to complement it.

“The dance floor is one of the safest places to have delicate conversations,” he offered to her after several pleasant minutes. “So I must confess I have a question, V.” She started to turn her head to face him. “No, do not look right at me. Less obvious.”

“Um, okay. Shoot.” There were more dancers on the floor now, and at some point the lights in the room had ticked darker. She heard the music shift into something slower and felt Goro tighten his arm around her, closing the gap between them.

“What is going on between you and Oda?” 

“Nothing.” She answered too quickly, and felt his chuckle rumble in his chest. His hand slid down on her back, resting slightly too low to feel decent in this room full of strangers. 

“Then why does he look as if he would like nothing more than to rip my arm off right now?”

V couldn’t help but feel a little thrill at that observation, allowing herself a smile as she nuzzled her check against Goro’s. “Because he’s a creepy little rat who doesn’t know that staring is rude.”

“It is his job to stare,” her partner offered. “Just as it might be yours.”

“What?”

She felt the hot ghost of his breath in her hair as he spoke. “Hanako-sama is going to ask you a very important question tomorrow. I would like to help you make the right decision, but I cannot do so unless I have all the facts.”

Her heart was thudding in her chest, and only part of it was this dangerous new information. The other part was how he was playing her like a cello to extract this complicated, shameful confession from her. The fact that she knew he was doing it didn’t make the attempt any less potent. “He’s just…we’ve… he’s been very helpful in my recovery. In more ways than one.” _Let him figure the rest out._ She let her hand snake onto his neck, working her fingertips into the short-shorn hair at the edge of his cybernetics. “And _you_ are starting something I don’t think you’re going to finish. Not nice, Goro.”

He moved her purposely for a moment, turning her to face the direction he had been. “I would very much like to conclude this business, little serpent, but you look at that face and tell me I would not be dead in your bed in the morning.”

She found herself practically face-to-face with Oda. He had his arms wrapped around one of the doll-eyed girls from earlier, her back to V, but his gaze was locked on _her_ like he was a sniper with a kill shot in his scope. 

_Why did I stop at one glass of champagne?_ She suddenly needed to be a lot more drunk than she was. Goro gave up expecting an answer from her and turned his head more fully towards hers, lips against her ear. “I do not presume to know your relationship with Oda, but I do know both of you have worked alone and been without for some time. It is a partnership worth considering.” She opened her mouth to protest, eyes still locked on Oda’s, but the only thing that came out was a ragged exhalation of breath when Goro pressed a kiss where his mouth had just been, and she watched Oda’s gaze darken, even in the dim light. She was relieved when the music wound down and shifted into something more upbeat, closing her eyes briefly against Oda’s excruciating gaze. She pulled away from Goro but kept his hand in hers, taking desperate strides toward the bar with him in tow. She needed tequila. _Now._

\---

“It’s fine, Goro, go on.” She dismissed the older man with her hand as she tossed back another shot. When he didn’t move, she signed exasperatedly and pointed at the small group of Arasaka employees gesturing her over to their table. “You wanted me to mingle, and I am. Aiko and Dai and…that other guy will be with me. I know how to call a car to go back to the apartment.” She pressed a hand to his face with drunk affection. “Go home, old man.” 

“Very well, V. Text me when you’re in.” He patted her hand and gently removed it from his person, turning to disappear toward the entrance.

“A round for my table, please!” She chirped at the bartender, who provided her with a tray of shots and she wove her way back toward the table of friends-for-the-night.

The mixer had taken a marked turn as the evening went on. Younger employees filtered in while the older employees filtered out; lights changed from warm and dim to pulsing and neon; the music shifted from harmless and polite to loud and raucous. She was certain she had seen blue lace inhalers making the rounds. Araska was basically running its own nightclub. Her head was buzzing pleasantly; it hadn’t been long at the bar before a tall man with a close-cropped faux hawk and warm eyes had introduced himself. Dai, he said his name was. _V._ How long have you worked here? _Not very long at all._ You’re not from here. Have you been to Tokyo before? _No, it’s my first time. Looking forward to noodles._ Oh, come sit with us; we’ll tell you all the places to go.

And so she had, with Goro watching her from the corner. The others either didn’t notice him or didn’t say anything. She met a mousy woman with beautiful eyes named Aiko, and a short, stocky man named Hiro. They had argued the merits of rice versus udon noodles, and begged her to teach them the proper “American” way to take a tequila shot.

“Kanpai!” they cried together, and V honestly enjoyed the experience of the sharp salt, the sting of tequila, and the bite of the lime. Her new friends, judging by their gags and laughs, didn’t as much.

A shadow fell over the table, and they looked up together. V had never felt the color drain out of her face faster. It was Oda, who was glowering menacingly at the table. _Of course he was. Glowering was his default state._

“Oda-san! Please sit with us,” said Aiko, suddenly more animated than she had been earlier in the evening. She tapped the empty chair between her and V. V wondered if she had been part of that gaggle of girls around him earlier. Oda went to accept her invitation and was met with a leg tossed over the seat to block his progress.

“People at this table do shots to earn their seat, it’s the rules,” V fluttered her eyelashes up at him as her new friends laughed. She pointed to the salt shaker, spare shot of tequila, and lime on the tray; the bartender had mistakenly poured one for Goro, perhaps.

“Very well, wild girl,” he responded, far more amicably than she had anticipated, and if she thought this night couldn’t hold any more surprises for her, she was wrong: Oda licked, shot, and sucked right in front of her eyes like he had been born and raised in Heywood before moving her leg and sitting down. V saw Aiko track Oda’s hand as he touched her ankle, and pretended not to notice the withering glance the other girl was suddenly giving her. She gestured toward the bartender, flashing a dazzling smile, and it seemed like the boys caught onto her scheme.

“V, some of us might have things we need to do tomorrow,” Dai said kindly. She could feel the warm press of his arm against her side on the bench they shared. It was nice. She could stand to be touched more, she decided.

“You just gotta dance some of it out, big guy! Come on!” She stood, swaying a little as she pulled the tall man to his feet. “Hiro, Aiko, Oda! Dance floor until shots arrive! Now!”

“Are all you Americans this bossy?” she heard Aiko ask playfully.

“No, this one is especially troublesome,” came the reply, and she caught Oda’s smirk as he allowed himself to be led to the dance floor by a hopeful-looking Aiko.

The music had become something pulsing and feral; the dance floor was more a mess of bodies and limbs than actual dancing at this point. Oda hated this part. He would have been long gone, but the minute he saw V come in the door, all sleek and black and polished, he knew he couldn’t possibly go anywhere as long as she was here. _I cannot believe Takemura-san did not share that she would be coming._

He had been to far too many of these mixers to count in his years at Arasaka, and they were always the same. Stilted conversation, empty-headed women from accounting trying to catch his eye, the inevitable devolution of drinking, drugs, and sex in corners. He was pretty sure he had taken Aiko home once, after a night of too many gin and tonics. It was hard to get him drunk with his metabolism. It had been a _lot_ of gin and tonics.

But now, in the electric pulse of neon light, watching V move with the music, skin damp with sweat and a smile on her face like she had finally found herself—yeah, this was more enjoyable. _As long as he didn’t think about Dai’s hands on her, or Takemura-san’s earlier._ Oda had no claim on V; she was her own woman, and he suspected that if he tried to act otherwise, she would remind him _sharply_ of the fact. He couldn’t help the way his blood had boiled when he saw her dancing earlier, though, or the way he had barely been able to stop himself from wringing Dai’s neck when he saw her leaning against him in her seat. _Why did he make her like this?_

“Oh, look!” He heard Aiko over the throb of the bass. “The shots!” She gestured excitedly, getting V’s attention and letting the bossy American lead the charge back to the table.

The Arasaka employees went to resume their seats, but they heard V stop them with a “Ah-ah-ah!” They all looked at her questioningly, including Oda.

“If y’all really want to be nasty Americans, these are for _body_ shots,” she announced, wiggling her eyebrows in such a comically villainous manner that Oda couldn’t stop himself from snickering.

V saw the excited apprehension on the precious, pure co-workers’ faces as they exchanged glances, and the way Oda pinched the bridge of his nose in resignation to this new twist.

“Okay, V, what do we do?!” Aiko said, perhaps a little too excited. V grinned at her.

“Come lay down on this bench, princess, and roll up your shirt—not _all the way_ , just enough for your belly button and stomach to show.” V chuckled as the girl hurried to comply, a furious blush on her face as she tried to keep from looking at Oda and failed. V picked up a shot glass and the salt shaker. “This is gonna be cold, okay?” The girl nodded, eyes widening as the cool liquor pooled in the dip of her navel. V took the liberty of sprinkling some salt in a line leading to it, and handed Aiko the lime wedge. The waifish girl was practically vibrating with anticipation; the boys’ eyes had grown dark with forbidden excitement. “Aiko, that goes in your mouth, pulp out, but before that, who is this shot for?”

A mad giggle escaped the living libation on the bench. “Oda! Or Hiro!” The lime wedge slid between her lips, and she saw the heavyset Hiro move with surprising speed to sink to one knee in front of Aiko. It was probably the only time Oda had ever been out-maneuvered by someone other than V. Hiro looked to V expectantly, and she offered a grin that could only be described as fiendish.

“You know this part, friend! Lick, shoot, suck!” Hiro looked positively ravenous, but soon discovered the logistical difficulties of drinking alcohol from another person’s body, sputtering as he sucked the lime against Aiko’s lips. Everyone was laughing by the time he recovered and stood, Aiko hopping off the bench and shooting one last disappointed glance in Oda’s direction.

Oda’s focus, however, had narrowed considerably; V had stretched out on the bench and rolled down the waistband of her skirt to reveal her bellybutton. _Did this minx have no shame?_ It was a silly thing to think as he watched her pour tequila and salt on herself.

“Come and get it, big guy,” she said to Dai, who looked more than ready to come and get whatever she told him to. Oda could feel that frustration bubbling up deep inside again, flexing his fingers into a fist. And then she was looking right at him, fire in her eyes like he’d never seen. “Unless Oda wants to surprise us all.” The eyebrow she raised was a challenge. 

He suspected it wouldn’t be the last time he fell to his knees in front of this woman, but the spell of the light, and the music, and the drink, and her skin was so _powerful_ that he couldn’t bring himself to care. He barely let her get the citrus wedge in her teeth before he was dragging his tongue eagerly along the line of salt and slurping the liquor up greedily. _Tequila was ruined for him now._

He bit on the slice of lime she offered from her lips like a sacrifice and pulled it free, trying to ignore how desperately he wished the fruit wasn’t in the way. He tossed the peel aside as he stood, not bothering to hide the smugness he felt. “Well?”

V was struggling to form words that made sense. She felt like he had melted part of her brain, and all she could think about was how fiercely she needed his lips on hers again. “Color me surprised,” she said, taking the hand he offered her as she stood. He didn’t let it go, either. Dai was looking particularly dejected, until he heard Aiko say, “C’mon, Dai, your turn!” V smiled encouragingly at him and he seemed to accept that whatever he had been hoping for was no longer a possibility.

" _We’re leaving,”_ Oda growled in her ear, already tugging her away from her new acquaintances. She threw up a half-hearted wave in their direction, but they were so absorbed in their new activity that they didn’t even notice. 

The silence in the hallway outside the room seemed even more deafening than the music inside, pressing heavily in her ears as she struggled to keep pace with Oda. He was moving with purpose, confidently making his way through the labyrinthine building. “Hey, slow down, I’ve got heels on! How come you’re not drunk?”

“You have had twice as much as I have, and it is difficult for me to become inebriated.” V thought he might be headed toward the elevator bank, but he took a sharp right before the floor opened up to them, pushing through the door into an echoing, concrete stairwell. It had barely closed behind them before his lips were on hers, tongue angrily pushing into her mouth, forcing a moan from her chest. He drank it down as her hands fisted in his hair and pulled, making him growl.

“Do you understand how watching you all night has driven me mad?” he whispered harshly against her lips. “This smart mouth smiling at everyone but me, this body pressed against everyone but me?”

“You want me to make it up to you, hm?” She nipped at his lower lip, releasing his hair to sink to her knees in front of him. They had been in this position before, and he felt just as out of control now as he did then; her fingers were surprisingly dexterous for how drunk she was, and it wasn’t long before she had her hand wrapped around his hot length, ripping a low groan out of him as she closed her mouth—that _smart, pretty, hot, wet mouth—_ down on him and started moving.

V was having some sort of divine, out-of-body experience that didn’t normally come with sucking dick. She didn’t know if it was the alcohol or making Arasaka’s apparently-most-sought-after bachelor absolutely lose his shit enough to lick tequila off of her in a room full of people, but she was certain this was the finest cock she had ever had the pleasure of swallowing. The angry, needy noises Oda was making as he fisted his hand in her hair were sweet music; the remorseless push of his hips into into her mouth was more sensual than any dancing she’d done tonight; the heavy-lidded, reverent way he was staring down at her was more powerful than any glare she’d weathered from him so far.

She felt his hips start to stutter, his fingers tightening against her scalp; she hummed encouragement for him. She couldn’t remember ever wanting anything more than for him to lose himself down her throat in this cold, sterile stairwell.

“V—” It was barely a word and more of a choked, animalistic grunt as Oda spasmed inside her, holding her head tight against him as she swallowed eagerly. His other arm shot out behind him, trembling hand curling against the wall for support. His thighs tensed beneath her palms, and if this was what power was, V understood why people went mad over it.

She slid him out of her mouth and managed to stand without stumbling; his eyes were still tightly screwed shut, breath huffing out of his mouth hard. They finally opened again as she delicately rearranged him back into his pants and fastened them again. “Take me home, Oda.”

He wouldn’t have been able to say no if he tried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you @tinmunky, @postmodernsleaze, and @scorpioink for letting me yell at you about stuff!


	8. We've Got Til Noon, Here Comes The Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Have some ::waves hands:: WHATEVER THIS IS (thanks, Ash).
> 
> Suggested listening: "A Waiting Game," Banks

_ The car ride back had been a blur of teeth and tongue, V’s skirt riding up high as she straddled Oda in the backseat. The sharp smack on her ass and the guttural “ _ Get inside,”  _ he muttered were the only indications she had that the quiet AI piloting the car had pulled up in front of the building where she was staying. She was more and more aware of exactly how much she’d had to drink; if Oda hadn’t had his arm slung around her, she wasn’t sure she would’ve made it all the way to the apartment. _

_ The millisecond they had their shoes off, Oda had scooped her up and carried her bodily to the bed, depositing her into the pillowy bedding.  _ “Strip.”  _ It had been his only instruction before he disappeared into the bathroom; the skirt came easily enough, but V struggled with the crop top for a minute. Her arms were going all the wrong places despite her best attempts, and her head was swimming. Swimming with desire, surely. Not with anything else. _

_ After several long moments, she finally succeeded and launched the garment across the room carelessly, falling back onto the pillows and enjoying the gentle rocking motion of the bed.  _ Why was the bed rocking? __

_ Her leg swung out and its toes found the ground, planting her foot firmly on it. The swaying lessened somewhat; the cool linens were a blessing on her overheated skin. “Odaaaa! ‘M supposeda text Goro that ‘m alive but mphone’s in my skirt and the floor’s so faaaaaaaaar!” It was a pressing emergency, but the bed was so  _ soft _ and her eyes were so  _ heavy. __

_ “I will do it,” he called back from behind the sliding door. He was shirtless in front of the mirror, desperately trying his best to claw back from the edge of reason this absolute devil of a woman had pushed him to. She was in no sort of condition to consent to what he was after. He knew he should be off-put, disgusted by the lack of control—even after all these months with him, she had not grasped the self-discipline necessary to not get her new body completely wasted. And he was. He tried to convince himself that was the only kind of disappointment he was feeling as he slid the door to the bedroom open. V was, of course, already asleep. He’d barely been gone three minutes.  _

**[ODA 01:31 AM]:**

Takemura-san, V is back safely in her lodgings.

**[TAKEMURA-SAN 01:32 AM]:**

Thank you, Oda-kun. Is there a reason I am

receiving this missive from you?

**[ODA 01:33 AM:]**

V has overestimated her new body’s rate

of metabolism.

**[TAKEMURA-SAN 01:34 AM]:**

I suspected as much. You will make sure

she takes some pills in the morning?

**[ODA 01:35 AM]:**

Yes, Takemura-san.

_ He debated leaving or sleeping on the couch, but the bed was big and he had been tortured enough tonight. The ache in his balls would go away eventually. He was far more concerned about the ache in his heart that flared when he saw her sprawled naked, hair fanned around her head in an accidental halo. This is exactly what he had worried about on the plane. He sighed, shaking his head at his own foolishness as he removed his pants and slid into bed beside her in his boxer briefs. He would have to rectify this in the morning. _

\---

“Yes, Hanako-sama. We will be there.”

V’s eyes fought her command to open at first, and through squinted lashes, she could only make out a shock of black hair nestled into the pillows next to her where she had heard the noise. Another blink, and she could see that it was attached to a collar of cybernetics and a muscular wall of color and shapes; the dragon’s eyes stared at her impassively from just higher than the horizon line of the comforter.

_What the_ fuck _had happened last night?_ She cast her mind backwards and glimpsed Goro, Oda, a _lot_ of tequila, a concrete stairwell, and a car ride that would’ve put her teenage self to shame. _After that, though—what had happened?_ She had made it to the bed, at least, and under the covers at some point. The dragon didn’t offer any answers. Then it lunged toward her and disappeared into the clouds, making her squeak in surprise as Oda rolled over to face her.

“You have survived.” If that’s what he called the splitting headache from her brain trying to pull away from inside her skull, then sure, she had “survived.”

“Debatable.” Her voice was husky with sleep and hangover. “Ow.”

“Open,” he commanded, and V chalked it up to her compromised state that she obeyed without protest. She felt his fingers on her lips and the drop of one, two pills on her tongue. He encouraged her mouth closed again with a hand on her chin, stretching to reach a glass of water on his nightstand and passing it to her. “Swallow.”

She did as she was told, greedily gulping down the entire glass before handing it back. “Did I just let you poison me?”

A smirk twisted Oda’s lips upward. She didn’t remember it being that charming. “No, I helped save you from your bad decisions yet again.”

Her head hit her pillow with a thump, smooth ceiling filling her vision. “I don’t recall you thinking that sucking you off in the stairwell was a bad decision.”

“An exception.” She felt his weight shift on the mattress, a warm palm closing over her upper arm. 

“Did we…”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“You fell asleep as soon as your head hit the pillow.”

“Oh.” She sounded relieved and disappointed in the same breath. “Why are you in my bed then?”

“I was not going to suffer on the couch because you lack awareness of how much you have had to drink.” There was more than a little irritation in his tone. “Takemura-san wanted me to make sure you properly recuperated before your meeting with Hanako-sama.” He gestured to the empty water glass and back at her. “Give those pills about 30 minutes and you will feel considerably more like a human.”

_ 30 minutes for any more mistakes you want to make _ is what V heard. She made one immediately, rolling on her side to face him and plucking his hand off her arm to tangle her fingers in his instead. She saw—no,  _ felt— _ his entire body freeze for a second, two, and then soften again, leaving his hand in hers. His upswept hair was considerably more rumpled than last night, and the worried lines he normally sported between his eyebrows were missing, his brow relaxed. She couldn’t even begin imagine what she looked like, besides a hot fuckin’ mess. The  _ normality _ of it—two lovers (well, sort of) laying in bed after a night out—startled her almost as much as the realization that she wouldn’t mind if this kind of thing happened more often. Was this the same Oda that had been calling her all sorts of nasty names for months, pissing her off with his arrogance every damn day, physically manhandling her into submission in the gym (and also out, if she counted the plane)? She resisted the urge to pinch him or herself to find out.  _ 28 minutes. _

She tried to course-correct the chemicals in her brain immediately. “So what is this meeting with Hanako about, anyway? She gonna offer me your job?” 

The sour look on Oda’s face did nothing to ease the unexpected pangs of longing in her heart. “Please. Do not be preposterous.” He hadn’t let her hand go. “That is for Hanako-sama to reveal, not me.”

“But you do know.” A foot crept in his direction until her toes were sliding themselves along his calf, knee bending until her leg was resting casually on his. 

“Yes.” He did untangle his fingers then, only to hook them into the crook of her knee and hike it higher as he pushed his thigh between her own.  _ 25 minutes _ . The throb in her head was already beginning to lessen, although the throb in other parts of her was starting to flicker alive.

She was close enough that she could reach to trail her fingernails up and down the plane of his chest and abdomen; she saw a shiver run up his spine as she did so. “What do you think I should do?”

“Pardon?” He brought his other hand up to rest on her throat, the thumb balancing on the edge of her lower lip. The digit brushed slowly one way and then the other, and he was rewarded with a tiny, breathy noise he felt on his skin.

“You know what it is; you know me.” It was a strange confession to make, but Oda supposed she was right.  _ Who had spent more time with her since she’d been inserted into a new body and forced to strike out on her own? _ He couldn’t think of anyone. “So what do you think I should do?”

He didn’t want to talk about this. How could he even begin to answer her question? Any guidance he could possibly give would seem disingenuous, and knowing V, would be taken personally; let alone the fact that his own feelings on it were so…muddled, and growing muddier every second he let her fingers dance along his jaw where skin met metal. He wasn’t sure what to make of this unusually intimate and relaxed moment; the possibility that he might be  _ enjoying _ it made his stomach lurch unpleasantly.. The only correct course of action would be to snatch her hand away and fuck her senseless, but after last night’s monumental failure to launch, this felt like a victory he wasn’t ready to relinquish yet.  _ 20 minutes. _

It wasn’t long, though, before the compulsion he felt to roll on top of her was too strong, the splay of her thighs too inviting. He was nestled between them before he knew it, savoring the way her eyes went wide with surprise as he supported himself above her on one elbow. She looked too good not to taste and so he allowed himself to drop his head down, dragging his mouth slowly down from her ear to her collarbone. “I think you should stop talking and finish what you started last night.”

V tightened her grip on his hips, closing her eyes against the hot slide of his lips and tongue. “I didn’t start shit. You’re the one that licked tequila off of me, if you’ll remember.”  _ 18 minutes. _

He was on a mission now, head dipping lower as he shifted down the mattress. His fingers hooked into the sides of her panties and slid them off effortlessly. “You are the one that ordered it.”

“Yeah, well, you’re—” a sharp intake of breath as he pressed a kiss to the inked violet on her pelvis that only he and the tattooer knew about, “—you’re the one that made me fuckin’ need it, so there.” Her fingers twitched with the effort of not burying themselves into his hair and shoving him down the rest of the way. She settled for raising a half-hearted middle finger from the bed in his general direction and then whimpering against the darkly amused noise he made from between her legs.

Oda had lost count of how many filthy text messages and photos they’d sent each other over the past months. 10, 100, 500? They all paled in comparison to the heaven spread before his eyes at this very moment. Every snarky comment, bratty flash of attitude, and downright cruel thing she’d ever said to him was going to be worth it if she tasted as good as she looked.

“Are you certain that was not Takemura-san?” The question made V snap her eyes open and look down to find his piercing optics studying her carefully, blown wide with desire and something else more sinister. She  _ knew _ Oda was the jealous type—the way he had knocked Dai aside last night before the body shot had all but confirmed that—but she hadn’t expected Goro’s little display to irk him so much he was still thinking about it this morning.

“And so what if it was?” There was more to the thought, but she was suddenly transfixed by the way he had moved so she could see his mouth, his own middle finger sliding slowly in and back out of his lips, the rude gesture becoming a promise of something she wanted very much indeed. She didn’t give him a chance to answer her.  _ 15 minutes. _

“You can’t talk about Goro and _ —ah, fuck— _ eat me out until I cry at the same time.” Her back arched as he worked that threatening digit inside her slowly; her resolve snapped and a hand shot out, threading her fingers into his hair. “And one of those things is  _ not  _ optional.” 

V clarified before he had the chance for a smart retort, tugging firmly and bringing his face flush against her. It was a display of control, but she had never felt more out of it as he pulled his tongue against her in torturously slow drags as his finger twitched just enough inside her; he was either  _ very _ good at this or she was  _ really _ eager. Whatever the truth, she could feel her abdomen draw taut and her legs tremble in an embarrassingly short amount of time. The bedding rustled as she fisted it in her hand, the other still in his hair and probably uncomfortably tight against his scalp.  _ 12 minutes.  _

“ _ Oda,”  _ it came out as barely more than a breathy sigh, but he would have heard it from 100 yards away.  _ He would be fine with hearing it every day for the rest of his life _ . He added another finger to the first and felt her arch off the bed with a fractured groan; he grappled her hip with his free hand, yanking her in tighter and encouraging her legs over his shoulders. He redoubled his efforts against her clit, listening to her whines escalate until he felt her start to clench around his fingers—

“Fuck! ODA! What the—” V had been  _ right there  _ when she felt the sudden emptiness from his hand withdrawing and his mouth leaving. He grinned up at her from the juncture of her thighs, and she suddenly understood, in the frustrated haze of denial, why they said the Devil was beautiful.

“You do not deserve this attention at all after your foolishness last night,” he intoned smugly, and she considered the pros and cons of trying to pop his head off his cybernetic neck off with her thighs. He reached up and pried her fingers from his hair, giving her palm a soft kiss like he wasn’t single-handedly responsible for all the misery in her life at this very moment. “And so you will come when I allow it and not a second sooner.”

“You fuckin’—”

He cut her off with a sharp nip at her thigh, making her squeal. “You still have 10 minutes before your pills are fully metabolized. I would  _ hate  _ to compromise your delicate system with overwhelming pleasure before you were prepared.”  _ Ah, this is better _ , he thought to himself, pressing his mouth against her again as she whimpered angrily. The strange feelings from earlier had all but dissipated, now that she was falling to pieces underneath him.  _ This is more like it. _

V was growing more inconsolable by the minute, however. The tension was coiled tight in her center and he ratcheted it further with each expert curl of his fingers or flick of his tongue. She was impossibly warm, her blood singing in her ears and through her veins to settle in a throbbing pool in her core that Oda seemed determined to drink from.  _ 7 minutes. _ She felt the edge pushing closer and focused on taking slow, deep breaths, doing her best to choke back the noises she was making.  _ Maybe if she was quiet, he wouldn’t— _

The next thing out of her mouth was an angry wail as he retreated  _ again.  _ “IhateyouIveneverlikedyouyoureaninsufferablesnobandIhavenoideawhatImevendoinghere.” It rushed out of her in one frustrated breath, her balled-up fist banging against the mattress once, twice, three times. Her other arm had flung itself over her eyes and when she dared to crack open her lids to look at him, he was resting serenely between her legs like he didn’t have a care in the world.  _ Fucker. _

“I have never cared for you much, either,” he responded, calmly, as if he were discussing the weather. “You are ungrateful, uncouth, irresponsible, and I certainly would not be here if it were not for my express orders.”  _ 3 minutes _ . Oda’s hand around her hip, however, belied his message; it reached for her fisted fingers, easing them open and between his own as he bent his head one final time, eager for her to finally lose herself under his tongue. He could dissect the troubling desire to hold her hand again later.

V was grateful, if confused, for the tiny bit of grounding his grip on her offered. He was moving his tongue against her urgently, his fingers curling enthusiastically inside her. She was a sweaty, whimpering mess; tears were threatening to spill from her eyes but she  _ really _ couldn’t give him the satisfaction—

“You may come now, V.” She heard him murmur it against her cunt, sucking her clit hard into his mouth and sending her hurtling into ecstasy. A scream ripped from her throat, her thighs clamped hard around his head, and her hips bucked convulsively. Her molecules were ungluing themselves and snapping back together again. By the time she went limp against the mattress and her legs opened to free him, she couldn’t stop a choked sob from pushing past her lips.

Oda had slithered up in time to catch her lamentation between his lips, his mouth still covered in her arousal. He could feel her try to return the kiss weakly, but he pulled back to behold the mess he had made of her: flushed skin, glassy eyes, smudged mascara, wild hair, chest heaving.  _ She was art. _

“You better quit looking at me like that,” she cautioned, barely intelligible in her pleasure-thick murmur.

“Like what?” He pulled their still-entwined hands up to his mouth and indulged in the inexplicable urge to bite at the pulse point on her wrist.

_ Like this isn’t a huge mistake. Like you want more. Like Goro does sometimes. “ _ Like you like me.” 

It couldn’t have been a truer arrow, shot past all his carefully-erected armor. Oda sat back on his knees abruptly, dropping her hand and watching it fall limply onto the bed. She blinked up at him, confused at first; the flicker of comprehension raced across her face soon afterward. They were shuffling away from each other simultaneously then: V was hurriedly trying to cover at least part of herself with the blankets, and Oda was standing and had his pants back on before she had even finished yanking up the comforter. 

“That is a ridiculous notion.” His voice was hard enough to cut glass. “I have heard you say stupider things, but not many.”

V’s shell shock was two-fold now: part post-orgasm, and part-whiplash from Oda. “You know me. Dumb street rat trash.”

“Indeed.” She heard it from the bathroom where he was shrugging into his shirt and jacket. When he appeared again, his mask was firmly back in place, Cold, indifferent, elitist Oda. “Your meeting with Hanako-sama is at 1. I will send a car for you.”

“Sure.” She was already curled up on her side, facing away from him. “You’ll be there?”

“Of course.”

“Alright. See ya, asshole.”

V thought he might have slammed the door as he left.  _ Not nearly hard enough.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Bean, Scorpio, Ash, Mel, and everyone on the Lizzie's Discord server. This chapter truly took a weird-ass, horny village.


	9. Feel Me, Completer, Down To My Core

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WOOF.
> 
> Suggested listening: "See You Bleed," Ramsey

**[GORO 12:45 PM]:**

_ I have you in my thoughts, little serpent. _

**[GORO 12:46 PM]:**

_ I regret that I cannot be there with you. _

**[V 12:47 PM]:**

_ Thanks, Goro. Means a lot. _

**[V 12:48 PM]:**

_ Is the garden on the property where I’m _

_ staying open to plebs like me? _

**[GORO 12:49 PM]:**

_ Of course. Perhaps we could meet _

_ there tomorrow? I suspect you _

_ may have much on your mind. _

**[V 12:50 PM]:**

_ I’d like that, Goro. Just text me when  _

_ you’re free. _

V’s feet tapped against each other nervously where her ankles were crossed in a half-hearted attempt to look like she knew how to behave like a lady. She was on her last corpo-appropriate outfit of her luggage: a black sheath dress with a graphic neckline and long, crimson sleeves. An exposed zipper ran along one side, functioning both as an adjustable slit and a hard contrast to the soft fabric. She had pulled her hair back into the sleek, low ponytail that she thought looked the least offensive.

She had been sitting in the spacious conference room for a few minutes now; the petite girl that had shown her in had nodded politely once V was seated and pulled the door shut behind her as she left. Floor to ceiling windows, tinted to control the sun, offered a staggering view of Tokyo. The table itself was heavy, smoked glass, and the chairs were black and overstuffed. The abstract art on the walls were washes of pastel and grays, the kind of inoffensive space-filler you would find in any corporate building. She wasn’t as uncomfortable in the room as she may have been at one point; she knew now that it was just the same shit, different uniform.

The door swung open; V straightened and stood, watching Oda sweep into the room and check for threats. She pointedly averted her gaze, schooling her face into irritated boredom as he stalked around the room, and then her, before circling back to the door.  _ If all she was to him was business, he could have it that way _ . “Hanako-sama.”

Hanako Arasaka had always struck V as a kind of otherworldly presence—poised to the point of detachment and pretty to the point of strangeness. Her white dress with structural shoulders and the golden implants in her skin did nothing to dispel the notion as she crossed the room and offered her hand. “V. I hope you are feeling well.”

“Ms. Arasaka.” The words sounded funny coming out of V’s mouth as she shook the other woman’s hand; she didn’t understand all the terms the Japanese affixed to different names, but she felt some sort of title was appropriate. “I’m feeling great. Thank you for asking.”

“Please, call me Hanako. Have a seat.” She did as instructed, feeling slightly surprised when Hanako settled into the chair right next to her instead of a few seats down or across the table.  _ Was this a business meeting or an intimate chat between girlfriends? _ She couldn’t help but sneak a glance at Oda; she knew he was looking at her and could feel the intensity of his stare. She saw the lightning-fast flash of surprise as Hanako sat, but it was gone from his face as soon as it came.

“Oda-san has reported incredible progress in terms of your acclimation to your new physical form,” she offered as an opening gambit. “I trust that he has been supportive of your efforts to reclaim your former prowess.”

_ Jesus, had this woman come just to test her? _ “He has been very helpful,” V said diplomatically, “but I daresay we are both ready to move on to next steps.” The words tasted bad coming out of her mouth, and she hoped they burned going into his ears. “I suppose you’re going to tell me what that is for me now.”

“Indeed,” said Hanako. The hands that had been resting delicately on the table folded themselves into her lap, the gold cybernetics glinting in the afternoon light. “I am going to be quite frank with you, V. Now that I have a much more…prominent…role at Arasaka, the oversight I used to have through other means has suffered. The skillset it requires is specific, takes years to hone, and requires the utmost discretion.”

V didn’t say anything just yet. She knew there was more.

“Oda-san is a loyal and faithful bodyguard,” Hanako continued, and V fought off the urge to roll her eyes,” but a netrunner he is not. And neither can I be any more. It is too dangerous. You, however, and your experience, make you uniquely suited to the task.”

“You want  _ me _ to netrun for you? Don’t you have flocks and flocks of netrunners to choose from?” V could hardly believe what she was hearing.  _ Hanako said “oversight.”  _ She was to be employed by Arasaka to…spy on Arasaka?

“Indeed, and they all work for Arasaka. You will work for me,” the heiress explained, as if there was a difference between the two. “Not only are you more talented than any two Arasaka runners put together— _ you have seen past the Blackwall, V. _ And, if I may be so bold, I would venture to say part of you now lives beyond it.”

A dagger that sharp seemed unnecessary at this point in the negotiations, but Hanako had brandished it expertly. V felt the hot sting of tears in the corners of her eyes, and the ache of emptiness in her heart that had gradually dulled come back full-strength. She pressed a hand to her chest without thinking, hoping it might miraculously soothe the phantom pressure. Her eyes fell onto Oda’s as she frantically searched for anywhere else to focus on besides the woman in front of her, and she saw the furrow of his brow that meant he was worried about something.  _ It certainly couldn’t be me. _

“I apologize,” Hanako said suddenly, breaking the tense silence. “I know that you have suffered greatly, and that my father, and Arasaka, is the cause of some of it.” It was a refreshingly candid  _ mea culpa _ . “I appreciate the…complexity of your situation and this offer.”

“So how would it work?”

Hanako blinked, taken aback for only a moment before the logistics started to roll off her tongue. “Tokyo would become your new home. We will send for your things, unless you wish to fetch them personally. You would travel with me, as Oda-san does. Full salary, medical benefits, other non-monetary perks and compensation.”

“Cyberware?” V had been completely organic since her reboot. They had told her she couldn’t have even the most basic optics or data jack until her body had “medical clearance,” whatever that meant. “Data jack, cyber deck, optics, reinforced skeleton, double jump, multi-weapon grip?”

“Yes. Additional heat sink technology augmentation,” Hanako added, tapping at the sleek gold stripes of metal that wrapped around her arms.  _ So that’s what that was. It was good-looking, at any rate. _

“I want to modify my Autonomy Agreement so I can take on freelance work. I’ll sign a non-competition clause.”

A slight pause before there was a reply. “I believe that can be arranged.”

“Housing, transportation?”

“Where are you currently staying is intended for long-term residency. Transportation will be arranged, or we will bring over the vehicle of your choice with your belongings.”

“And I report to you, right?” V wanted to make absolutely certain of this point. “ _ Not  _ Oda?” Both she and Hanako heard the quiet huff from behind them, and V could swear that Hanako’s lips had twitched just as her own had done.

“Directly to me. You will be my protégé, as Oda-san was Takemura-san’s. Your footing will be equal to his own.”

_ He’s gonna hate that.  _ A quick glance toward his face confirmed that theory: his lips had drawn themselves into a thin line of irritation. She knew it because he made that face at her at least once a week.  _ Well, that’s a pro to taking the job. _

On paper, it all seemed on the up-and-up. It was the least “corpo” corpo job V had ever heard of. Hanako, for all her unfortunate family entanglements, seemed earnest in her desire to keep tabs on Arasaka independently. But the thought of the Net again, and not just once—frequently, possibly multiple times a day. The thought of submerging herself into that cold and disconnected reality, combing code with the knowledge that rogue AIs and daemons would constantly be straining to absorb her, that  _ Johnny _ might be one, made her skin crawl.

“Can I have a couple of days to think about it?”

Hanako’s face seemed to fall, so imperceptibly that V thought she might have imagined it. “Yes, V, but please know that the window in which I can extend this offer is very small indeed. I will need an answer no later than Friday afternoon.”

_ Three days. _ She could make up her mind in that time.  _ Maybe. _ “I understand.”

“Please also understand that while you are free to move about the city as you desire, I will need Oda-san to remain with you as a chaperone during this determination period.”

“ _ No—” “Hanako-sama—” _

The woman couldn’t camouflage her surprise this time, physically turning in her chair to look at her bodyguard before her calculating gaze returned to V. “The other option is a subdermal tracker, to be removed upon your acceptance or declination.” 

“That’s fine,” said V, a little too quickly. Hanako rose from her chair and V did the same, grateful to at least move  _ somehow _ after that intense conversation.

“Oda-san will take you to have it implanted, then,” Hanako said with finality. And then, just when V thought there would be no more surprises, Hanako pulled her into a hug, brief though it was. V barely had time to pat the giver’s arms before it was over. “Be well, V. Contact Oda-san when you have made your decision. He will let me know.” 

“Thank you, Hanako.” 

The attitude in the room changed on a dime as Hanako opened the door and left down the hall. What had been quiet and conspiratorial became silent and ominous. Oda advanced on V without a word and did not miss her unconscious step away from him, bumping her against the table.  _ Was she scared of him now?  _ Surely not, but he could see her desire to escape painted in her wide eyes as they cast about with uncertainty. 

She had surprised him yet again during her conversation with Hanako, both in her demands for further autonomy and the request for some time for consideration. The first one was prudent; the second one foolish. The elite position being opened to her, a Night City nobody who was only still around because of her cooperation and Hanako-sama’s good graces, was an opportunity beyond anything she could dream. Oda had hoped V would have the good sense to choke back her stubbornness and accept gracefully.  _ She never did anything easily. _

He closed a hand around her elbow, steering her towards the hallway and down it to the left “Come with me.”

“Already did once today, fuckin’ sucked afterward.” The words had tumbled out of her mouth before V had realized what she was saying. Her face flushed hot; all she could do is pray that he hadn’t heard.

But of course he had. “You will forgive me if I harbor no sympathy for you,” he hissed back, fingers on her elbow digging in slightly.

“I won’t forgive you for shit.” Oda paused in front of a door that looked the same as the dozens of other doors they had passed. “In here.” He opened the door and ushered her inside in front of him, a little more roughly than was strictly necessary. A scientist in a lab coat sat at a conference table in a much smaller room than the one V had just been in with Hanako. A silver metal briefcase rested on the table in front of him.

“Please sit, Ms. V. This will only take a moment.”

She yanked her elbow out of Oda’s death grip, shooting him a glare before sitting in front of the man giving instructions. The briefcase latches flipped up and the top swung open to reveal a pistol-like device—if pistols had tiny kegs attached to the top of them. The scientist removed the device from the foam padding, looking over at what V was wearing and frowning slightly.

“The tracker normally goes in your non-dominant arm, just above the crook of your elbow…do your sleeves roll up?”

_ Christ on a cracker. _ As if this whole ordeal wasn’t embarrassing enough already, now she had to take part of her dress off.  _ This is why corpo clothes suck. _ She grabbed a hold of the sleeve of the arm in question, flailing as gracefully as she could to extract her arm from the fabric before trying to reach behind her and grasp the tiny pull on the invisible zipper at the base of her neck. 

She heard an impatient  _ tsk _ from behind her, and she didn’t need to look to know that Oda was coming in for the assist—a second later, and she felt the neck of the dress relax several inches. She shuffled her arm the rest of the way out of the offending fabric and stretched it flat in front of the scientist with an apologetic smile. 

“This will sting a bit, Ms. V,” he warned kindly as he positioned the implant device and pulled the trigger. V might have winced if she hadn’t been so off-put by the fact that Oda had not moved his hand from the base of her neck, where it was currently catching the nerves under it on fire. 

“Thank you, Tanaka-san,” Oda said in a tone that meant his services were no longer needed. “Please close the door when you leave.” The scientist hurriedly buckled up the implanter into its case and scurried out, nodding his head politely. The click of the door jamb locking into place echoed in the room— _ or was that just in his mind? _

V had already scooted out from under his hand, shuffling awkwardly back into the sleeve of the dress. He watched her flounder for a moment, in awe that this nervous, bumbling woman was the same that could knock him flat in the sparring ring and sass him until he thought he would burst from frustration. “Why do you always do things the difficult way?” he asked after she finally righted herself in her garment, his fingers deftly refastening the zipper up to the top.

“Excuse me, I didn’t  _ know  _ when I got dressed—”

“That is not what I mean.” She stood then, finally facing him head-on since he had stormed out of her apartment this morning in a blustering, confused rage. Her jaw was set, but he could see the muscle twitching in irritation by the bone. Her gaze was hard, but he could see her turmoil swimming in them plain as day. He knew her now, and he knew her tells. She was on the edge of breaking down or lashing out. He thought—no,  _ knew _ it was because of him, and now there was another unfamiliar feeling blooming in his chest: guilt. “Why did you not say yes to Hanako-sama? The opportunity is singular.”

It was all V could do to not haul off and deck him. “Singularly fuckin’ terrifying, you mean! Oda, have you ever been in the Net?” His silence told her all she needed to know. “I didn’t think so! The Blackwall isn’t an impenetrable fortress; it’s a tattered tarp that gangs, runners, and corps poke holes in all the fuckin’ time. Rogue AIs, daemons, who knows what else, all one wrong line of code away from  _ assimilating you _ .” She yanked the tie out of her head in frustration, fingers wiggling through the roots of her hair to let it breathe, to provide any distraction from the panic she was feeling. “Not to mention it means being with  _ you  _ all the fuckin’ time.”

He couldn’t hide the fact that he was a little affronted. “Believe me, I am not thrilled at the prospect, but Hanako-sama feels this would be the best way to utilize your…talents and unique perspective,” he spat the words out. “Despite your lack of training and service.”

“Oh, yeah, it’s my idea of a preem time, being belittled by you all damn day and then being your personal joytoy at night.” V had her face in her hands now, voice muffled as she tried to hide from the onslaught of emotions: anxiety, fear, anger, uncertainty, indignation.

Oda wasn’t bothering to disguise his frustration now, his fingers closing around one of her wrists and forcing it down from her face. He received the full brunt of her murderous stare in that eye. “You are sorely mistaken if you think your sexual prowess is even given a breadth of consideration in this scenario. There are no fewer than six women two floors down that I could have right there at their desks and they would thank me.”

A sharp bark of bitter laughter escaped her. “All those fawning darlings at the mixer, you mean? C’mon, Oda. Empty-headed giggle boxes who have never seen so much as a fist fight in their life?” Her other hand moved from her face, miming the action of stroking a cock. “You couldn’t even get it up for them if you tried.”

His vision was going red. He was towering in front of her now, her ass backed up against the table, but she wasn’t giving in. “You would fare much better, since you open your legs for anyone that so much as looks at you—”

“Like that’s a problem!” V tried to stand against him, but the press of his chest kept her firmly pinned against the table. She scooted up onto it properly in an attempt to create space, but Oda pressed the advantage, resting his hands menacingly on either side of her legs. “You fuckin’ love it and won’t admit it because you’re a  _ coward _ .”

He bristled at the word. “Does Takemura-san like it too, little serpent?”

_ Crack. _

Her hand stung from the blow she had dealt him on that stupid, beautiful cheekbone. His face was already reddening from it.  _ Fuckin’ nova.  _ The genuine shock he was displaying was delicious, but she was too furious to appreciate it. She fisted a hand in his collar and pulled his face even with hers, the fire in her eyes on full display. “ _ That name is not for you.” _

Oda’s icy glare fought with V’s, flaming and hot, for seconds that seemed like eternities; then several things happened at once. His fingers curled around her neck and lifted her from the table, a choked noise of panic slipping out of her as her feet left the ground. He anchored her hard against the nearest wall, letting her soles touch the carpet again as he descended on her with a kiss that tasted of remorse and violence. Their teeth clacked; V tried to close her lips against the press of his tongue, finally biting down on it, making him wince and separate from her.

“Fuck you, Oda.”

“Same to you, _kuso-ama_.” His voice hitched on the last syllable from the pressure of her palm against his rock-hard cock in his pants, squeezing just a little too hard for the sensation to be completely pleasurable. He released her neck only to shove two fingers into her mouth, far enough back to make her cough and gag; he didn’t notice that her hands had worked his pants open until he felt her nails scrape along his length, pulling a string of Japanese curses out of him. 

It was all V could do to keep breathing with his fingers jammed in her mouth like that, sucking in shallow sips from her nose as her hands worked him over with a hint of cruelty. His mouth dropped to her ear, biting hard on the shell before continuing downward, sucking painful bruises into her skin. She felt delirious with want as much as she did bursting with anger, and closed her teeth onto his fingers savagely, chasing a modicum of relief for either. 

Oda grunted against her neck, yanking his fingers out of her mouth and feeling her hot gasps for air rush past his ear. His mouth took no respite from marking the skin of her neck and collarbone; he wanted to mark  _ every single fucking inch _ of her, and needed to move on to  _ inside  _ desperately. He forced the zipper on her skirt to open wide so he could work both hands up to her panties; the lace side shredded with a sharp tug, making them fall to the floor. The fingers damp from her mouth plunged inside her without an ounce of resistance, making her jerk against his hand sharply; his head lifted from her throat to meet her eyes again. She looked as lost as he felt. “You are soaking, you filthy slut.”

V recognized the slur for what it was when growled from Oda’s suck-swollen lips: an appreciation, a confession, a declaration. A half-crazed smirk crept across her face from his words and from his fingers working roughly inside her. She pulled her hand out of his pants to display her fingers to him, glistening with pre-cum, before she licked them clean while he watched. The inhuman noise he made at the sight was something she  _ needed to hear every day. _ “Fuck me, Oda.”

He had her legs wrapped around his waist and his cock lined up with her entrance in an instant; he was trembling with the restraint it took not to slam into her. His free hand turned her chin roughly so she was face-to-face with him. He wanted her to look him in the eye and beg for it. “Is this what you want, you nasty street-rat harlot?”

His words shot a thrill through her; she felt as if she were floating above her body somewhere, watching this long-delayed depraved union consummate itself from afar. “If I’m the nasty street-rat whore that wants it, you’re the depraved, corpo-slave that’s gonna give in to it.” She leveraged a hand of her own then, taking the one wrapped around his neck to reach into his hair and yank, twisting his ear to where he held her lips. “ _ So who’s really falling from grace here?” _

Oda didn’t give her an answer; he only snapped his hips forward and sank into her, pushing home until her soft body would yield no more against him. Their relieved moans sounded in tandem, hers drilling right into his ear and into the part of the brain that drives addiction. He knew he would never have enough of that noise, or this: the wet, searing heat of her around him, her muscles clenching to draw him further inside. His forehead sank onto her shoulder, making his scalp sting with the resistance of her hand in his hair.  _ If this was falling from grace, he was furious he hadn’t given in sooner. _

V, true to form, lost her patience first. “Oda, fuck me,  _ please,”  _ she whimpered, the delicious stretch and sting of him filling her fading fast into a low, rolling tension deep inside. He obliged with the dedication and fervor that defined him: powerful, steady thrusts at a pace just fast enough to have her gasping within minutes. His fingers left her face and she felt both of his hands curl hard into the flesh of her hips; there would be marks, even with the dress. He pulled her into him with each thrust, the sharpness of the added momentum making her eyes roll back in her head. She wasn’t going to last long at this pace; she gave in to the desire to reach a hand between them to rub at her clit.

Oda’s face was cast downward, eyes locked on the place their bodies were meeting frantically over and over, where V’s fingers were working herself expertly toward climax. He was muttering in Japanese, he was aware, but only vaguely. The pressure to release was spiraling up fast; he rested his forehead against hers in a last-ditch attempt to stretch out the pleasure. “Going to come all over me, right, my little whore?”

She whimpered her assent, nodding enthusiastically. “Gonna fill me up with your come? I want it so  _ bad,  _ Oda,  _ please—” _

Any tiny thread of self-control he had left snapped; he was pounding ruthlessly into her then, watching in awe as V’s face screwed up against the sensation of her orgasm washing over her, the spasm of her walls enough to send him over the edge. He held her hips tight against his, the pulses from climax so strong it was almost painful. She reached for his face, kissing him like he was water in a desert, and he returned it with equal fervor.

He encouraged her legs down from around his waist gently, making sure she could support her own weight before withdrawing from her, hearing her voice the whimper of loss that he felt. They spent a few moments in silence, straightening and zipping and, in V’s case, tossing her shredded panties in a wastebasket.  _ Let them give the janitor a thrill.  _

Neither of them had spoken as he ushered her out of the conference room and walked her the rest of the way to the elevator bank. The dopamine was hitting them both hard, but V knew the conflict that had started everything would need to be resolved sooner or later.  _ Didn’t have to be right now, though. _

She could still see some redness high on Oda’s cheek from her slap. That pleased her, and powered her smart mouth enough to say something just the car arrived.

She stepped in and turned to face him. “I’ll say hi to the girls in accounting for you on the way down…unless I find Dai first.” 

It was her turn to leave him stunned as the doors slid shut between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Love you, Lizzie's punks. ::kith::


	10. Feeding On Fever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where it gets sweet, weird, and a little sad.
> 
> Suggested listening: "Dead Body," Chet Faker

**[GORO 12:14 PM]:**

_ Might we meet for an evening stroll through _

_ the garden, V? Perhaps dinner? I regret that I  _

_ will not be able to leave my post as early as I _

_ had anticipated. _

**[V 12:15 PM]:**

_ That’s fine, Goro. It’s not like I’m doing  _

_ a lot right now. :) _

**[GORO 12:16 PM]:**

_ No? You are not training with Oda as _

_ you were in Night City? Is there a _

_ problem? _

**[V 12:17 PM]:**

_ You could call it that. Catch you up _

_ later. :* _

V couldn’t help but shake her head and smile a little at Goro’s text. A  _ problem? _ Her situation with Oda was a  _ problem _ in the same way that a flaming arrow into a village of thatched-roof houses was a problem; it burned hot and bright, and it was quickly growing out of control.

She had not heard from him last night or at all this morning; that was just fucking fine by her. After she had come down from him railing her on company time, the frustration and uncertainty had roared back more powerful than ever. She had tried to consider Hanako’s offer logically that evening, but was quickly overtaken by a cloud of anxiety, tendrils of fear wrapping around her brain and squeezing until it was all she could do to crawl into a bed with a bottle of vodka she had found in the kitchenette and cry herself to sleep. 

She paid her penance in the morning, pulling on some leggings and a tank top and shuffling off to the in-building gym she had seen while coming and going. It was quiet while she was there, and the rhythmic sound of the treadmill belt had been soothing to listen to. For now, anyway, her mind was calm. 

Now she suddenly had a free afternoon and wasn’t sure how to fill it. A museum, a tour of some sort?  _ Wish Oda was here, he would know. _ Her face curled into a sour expression in the mirror at the thought that had leapt into her head unbidden.

“Stop it,” she said aloud to the mirror V grimacing at her. Mirror V obeyed, but not before sticking her tongue out. Then she caught sight of her discarded dress from yesterday. She had exhausted her supply of Arasaka-appropriate clothing and could probably do with more.  _ Well, that settles that, then. _ She called a car and it arrived in mere moments; she slid in, shut the door, and was off on her sartorial adventure in what might be her new city. There, in her brain behind the apprehension layed thickly on top, was a spark of excitement. She would do her best to fan it today.

\---

**[V 05:13 PM]:**

_ Meet me here for dinner when you can? _

[image]

**[GORO 05:14 PM]:**

_ Little serpent, how did you manage _

_ to find the one noodle shop _

_ in Tokyo with the most offensive _

_ pun for a name? : ) _

**[V 05:15 PM]:**

_ My new friends you forced me to  _

_ make recommended it. I wash my hands _

_ of the name other than to give it my _

_ wholehearted endorsement. _

**[GORO 05:16 PM]:**

_ Of course you do. Send me the coordinates. _

_ I’ll be there shortly. _

V couldn’t keep the smile off her face. In a city full of strangers, she had least had Goro. She gathered her bags she had collected over the course of the afternoon and headed into the land of culinary promise that was “Udon Know Me.”

\---

“What do you mean ‘he knocked him out of the way’? Oda-kun would not be foolish enough to instigate fisticuffs at a company—”

V sighed, snapping her fingers in front of Goro’s face as he fixated on the least important detail of all of the things she had shared. “Hey, focus, Goro. It wasn’t like  _ that _ , I promise.”

The older man steepled his fingers together under his chin and didn’t answer right away. V brought her empty bowl up to her lips and sipped down the last of the warm, flavorful broth. They had definitely been the best noodles she had ever had, but her barometer for delicious food was admittedly pretty low; the fact that Goro’s bowl, too, was mostly empty indicated that it wasn’t just her who had enjoyed the meal. He’d had ample time to eat as well, nodding along with encouragement as V completely and totally exposed herself, starting with the bottle of tequila four months ago and ending with finding Oda naked in her bed yesterday morning. (She did not mention their conference room encounter in the afternoon; she suspected Goro’s opinion on that might be less-than-favorable and wanted to spare herself the lecture.)

In another time and place, she might have realized what a compromising position this would put Goro in, or he might not have even allowed her to continue as soon as she had mentioned Oda’s name. But now, after everything, their relationship had transcended rules of propriety in a way she would have never imagined. He could read her like a book and she allowed him to; in return, he shared snippets from the novel of his life that were illuminating, or parabolic (those were his favorite). It was as close of a friendship as she’d had with anyone, and intimacy didn’t even enter into the equation, whether or not they indulged.

“—and he’s just so fuckin’  _ stuck up _ , Goro. You’re not like that; what is his damage?”

“I grew up in the slums of Chiba-11. He did not. Oda-kun’s family knew nothing but Arasaka, as does he now. He wears it as a point of pride, but a part of him knows that there are certain…intangible advantages he lacks because of it. What would you call it…’street smarts.’”

“Like how to not be a complete asshole?”

Goro  _ tsk _ ed at her, rising from the table and beckoning her to follow him. He took a handful of her bags as they walked out onto and down the street, easing her burden so she could hook her arm in his. “Oda-kun can be perfectly charming when he wants to be. He deploys it like a weapon. I will admit that he and I are so familiar that I rarely see that side of him any more. I suspect,” Goro mused, eyeing the several oblong, dark bruises along her neck pointedly, “that you are also seeing other, more secretive parts of him along with his unvarnished irritation.”

V thought about the smile he’d given her across the crowded party room, the way he had closed her lips for her after giving her hangover meds, the way he’d nipped at her wrist with something approaching fondness.  _ Maybe I am, sure. _

“Shall we drop these before our walk? I’ll call a car.”

“Sure.” Out of the corner of her vision, a flickering neon sign caught her eye. She couldn’t read the sign, but she recognized the picture lit up by the kanji: a hand wielding a long, wooden stick with a bundle of needles secured by thread to the base. “How long until the car is here?”

“A few minutes, perhaps.”

“Will you come in here with me for a sec, please?”

V was already pulling him through the door before he said yes, the tiny bells on the door tinkling magically. The inside of the shop was a distinct contrast from the grimy, urban entrance. The light was warm and soft; bamboo mats covered the parts of the floor that weren’t tile. Two adjustable tables lay a short distance away from each other, surrounded by overhead lights, trays, and cabinets. A tattoo gun sat in a holder strapped to a metal tray arm. The area was cramped but clean. She thought she heard zen-garden-like music being piped in from somewhere.

A wizened old man sat on a rolling stool by one of the stools, chewing on a mysterious substance that they seemed to give out once you hit the get-off-my-lawn age. V bowed slightly. “Konichiwa.” 

He grunted in response, and V looked him over quickly; there was no way this guy had translator software. She turned to Goro, who was looking on, bemused. “Can you ask him if they do  _ irezumi _ here?”

Goro blinked in surprise, but acquiesced. The two men had a short exchange. “He says yes. Both he and his brother.”

“Can you ask him about appointments?” Another back-and-forth.

“No appointments. Walk-ins only.” Goro’s eyes lit up red temporarily. “The car is here.”

V turned to the  _ horishi _ and bowed again. “Arigato.” Goro repeated the sentiment as they exited back out onto the street to find a sleek black car waiting for them. They piled into the backseat with V’s bags, and when they started moving, he leveled a gaze at her. “Why the sudden interest in traditional Japanese tattoos?”

“Oh, you know, if I’m gonna live here, I might want to get some ink done the real way. None of this Western trash,” she joked, gesturing toward the part of her snake visible on her arm.

“V, why do you bother trying to lie to me?” His face was serious but his eyes were kind.

“I’m not lying!”

“So that had nothing to do with Oda-kun’s unfinished dragon and how hard it has been for him to find someone to complete it?”

“I mean, I’ll tell him the place is there. I’m not the complete dick in that situation.” In fact, she’d do it right now, as Goro shook his head at her laughingly, falling silent as the car weaved through traffic. It could be a peace offering of sorts.

**[V 07:20 PM]:**

_ I know we’re fighting, but this place has  _

_two_ horishi _that do_ irezumi. _Walk-ins only._

_ Might get something done myself. _

[image]

[coordinates]

\---

“You think I should do it, obviously.”

They hadn’t made it to the garden. V and Goro had kicked off their shoes to set her bags down, and then the couch had just been  _ right there _ . The greenery could wait until another day. He had let her crawl into the crook of his arm and rest her head on his shoulder while his own fingers drew lazy circles on her skin. The conversation had circled around to Hanako’s offer.

“I cannot see why any alternative would serve you better, no.” She knew what he was going to say before he was going to say it. Of  _ course _ he wanted her to. “This business with Oda-kun will resolve itself—”

“—only if he stops being a little fucker—”

“V.” He cut her off with such authority that she sat up in surprise, turning her head to look at him. His face was serious, more serious than it had been all night. His silvery optics always seemed to give her goosebumps when he focused them, and right now was no exception. “Do you understand how dangerous it was for Hanako-sama to share with you her netrunning activities? What a risk it would be if that information were to leak into the wrong hands?”

She furrowed her brow slightly as she considered his words. “I mean, sure, but—”

“It must have taken a very strong recommendation from someone she trusts implicitly for her to divulge this to you.”

“But—” She blinked, her eyes growing wide with the revelation he had laid on her. Goro watched knowingly as the implication dawned on her fully. 

Oh. _Oh._ _Oh, shit._

“You’ve gotta be shittin’ me, Goro.”

“Why would I?”  _ Because if you were I wouldn’t have to eat the biggest fuckin’ slice of humble pie ever next time I see him. _ The realization of exactly how far Oda had stuck his neck out for her was coming into sharper and sharper relief, and she had responded lukewarmly to this offer that he had helped craft specifically for her. No wonder he was so pissy after the meeting. 

“I’m the fucker here, aren’t I?” V’s face was buried in her hands, her words muffled.

Goro chuckled warmly. “You are both fuckers. Now come here, little serpent.” He tugged at her arm, encouraging her to turn and settle her weight in his lap astride him. His hands rested on her hips and her arms casually encircled his neck. It was natural, friendly, comforting. It was possible that this is all the further things would progress, but the twinkle in Goro’s eye told her that he might have leftover designs from the mixer he intended to act on.  _ Definitely no problem with that. _

“Yeah, but now I’ve gotta  _ apologize  _ somehow, I’m allergic to that shit,” she whined, her back arching underneath the sudden contact of his warm palms under her shirt.

“I am certain you will find a way that is befitting in both tone and sincerity.” Funny of him to say that with such a tease in his voice, speaking against her jaw in such a way that her head tilted back instinctually to offer him more of whatever it was he was after. She wasn’t aware of her phone buzzing madly in the pile of bags in the corner.

**[ODA 09:02 PM]:**

_ V, where are you? Are you at that _

_ shop right now? _

**[ODA 09:02 PM]:**

_ That area is unsafe after dark. _

**[ODA 09:05 PM]:**

_ I can send a car for you. _

**[** **ODA 09:08 PM]:**

_ V? _

**[ODA 09:11 PM]:**

_ I know I have been…unkind, but at _

_ least tell me if you are safe. _

**[ODA 09:13 PM]:**

_ V, please. _

By the time he actually tried pinging her holo, V almost didn’t notice; her eyes were closed against Goro’s mouth on her neck and the press of his hips against hers. “Ah, fuck.” She caught it just soon enough to hard-close the window, ignoring the call. 

“What is it?” His voice was muffled as he spoke into her skin. She didn’t get a chance to answer before her holo pinged  _ again;  _ she ignored it once more.

“Oda’s trying to fuckin’  _ call. _ I ignored him.” She encouraged him onward from where he had paused momentarily, rocking against him and pushing his hands down her body to the waistband of her pants. 

Goro acquiesced, but only momentarily. She felt him freeze, and one of his hands shot up and clapped over her mouth, leaving her blinking in surprise.

“Oda-kun.”  _ Christ _ , Oda had called and Goro  _ had answered. _ She glared at him powerfully. He either didn’t notice or wasn’t affected.

“She is safe. She is with me.” V strained to hear Oda’s response, even though she knew that wasn’t how holo technology worked. Goro kept his hand firm on her mouth to keep her from leaning into frame.

“She has much on her mind, and I daresay you have not been very helpful, have you?” “I know what I need to know.” V watched him carefully; Goro had a masterful poker face, but he also had his hand almost down her pants, so there was a chance he might be more relaxed than normal.

And then she saw it, the tiniest of eye rolls as Goro spoke again. “I told you, Oda-kun, V is not a wild animal to be broken or marble to sculpt in your image. You set yourself up for failure thinking this way.” “You believe Hanako-sama’s offer is the best choice from  _ your _ perspective, but did you once stop to consider what it actually asks of her?”

She was growing impatient;  _ how was it possible Oda was  _ still _ ruining her day even though she hadn’t talked to him once?  _ She shifted her weight backwards, wriggling off of Goro’s knees and onto the floor between them. He shot her the briefest of warning glances before he returned his attention to the holo, but his hand left her mouth to cradle her face sweetly, which was as much of a go-ahead she would get from him while he was on the holo.

“There is nothing  _ going on _ between myself and V, Oda-kun.”  _ Ohhhh, what a fun turn of events. _ “We have a history but are not entangled. She is a grown woman who seeks out what she wants and deserves no judgment for it.”  _ You tell ‘em, Goro.  _ She finagled his belt buckle open slowly, avoiding the clink of metal, and made quick work of the button and zipper. “Have you expressed this to her?” “I thought not.”

She felt Goro’s hand curl against the side of his head as she worked his length free and took him, half-hard, into her mouth. She heard the hitch in his breath, and if she had, it meant Oda had as well. “I am fine, continue.” V serviced him unhurriedly, moving her mouth in long, languid strokes and relishing the feeling of him growing both harder and more agitated with the phone call.

“Oda-kun, may I suggest being candid? V has seen enough lies and deceit to last her several lifetimes. I suspect she will find the honesty refreshing.” She almost couldn’t stop the giggle that bubbled up inside her at the audacity of offering such guidance in this situation. Goro’s breath hitched again, the tips of his fingers slapping against her cheek in a gentle warning before she redoubled her efforts. “I told you she is with me. Is that not sufficient?” 

It was a full-on eye roll this time. “V, Oda wishes to confirm your presence visually.”

_ It couldn’t have been better if she planned it.  _ She pulled her mouth off of Goro with a wet pop and yanked her top off, tossing it aside. “Go right ahead and send him a picture, then,” she encouraged before closing her lips over his head and sucking hard.

It earned her an actual jerk of his hips and she hunted for a repeat of the motion, closing her hand around the rest of his length. “Very well,” she heard Goro grumble. V didn’t know if he was talking to her or Oda, but she saw him fumble his phone out of his pocket and point it towards her. She did her best to look innocent as the shutter sounded and heard a low noise that may have been a chuckle as Goro hit send. “You brought this on yourself, Oda-kun.”

She rewarded his mischief by swallowing him completely, earning her a very audible broken groan; she supposed the cat was out of the bag now. “I will not be your messenger. Talk to her about it like the adults you are.” “Yes, she is an adult even if she is not acting like it at the moment.”  _ Well, shit; if a blowjob isn’t adult, then what is? _

“I am hanging up now, Oda-kun. Good night.” He had barely spoken the words fully before Goro had his hand at the back of her head, holding her down as his hips pressed up into her. She coughed but didn’t dare try to pull away. “You know, he called you a shameless minx. I am inclined to agree.”

V flexed her neck against his hand and he released her. She wiped her mouth free of drool with a look of absolute evil in her eyes, standing and encouraging him to do the same. “You wanna take his word for it or make your own independent assessment?” 

Goro smirked, allowing himself to be led toward the bed, shedding his shirt in the process. “I am nothing if not a thorough man.”

\---

“Goro?”

“Yes, little serpent.” V was snuggled against him in a horizontal version of their couch cuddles earlier, legs tangled together and one of his hands combing through her loose hair, coming down from the post-sex high.

“Can you promise me something?”

“I will do my very best.”

“If I take this job, will you watch Nibbles when I’m not here?”

It was a genuine laugh she heard this time; they were so rare with Goro, and the sound warmed her. “Chances are high that we will be traveling together frequently, but I promise to watch Nibbles-chan while you are away with the same fierceness as I do Saburo-sama.”

“Thank you.” She rolled, resting her head on his chest to look up at him with a sudden seriousness on her face. “This is nice, Goro. Why didn’t we try and make this a thing?”

He looked down at her, hair loose around his face, pausing his hand’s attention in her hair so it could curl around her jaw. “Violet.” It nearly knocked the wind out of her. No one knew that name here except him. “We have talked about this.”

She studied the sprinkles of silver in his chest hair, suddenly unable to look him in the eye. They  _ had  _ talked about it; there was nothing wrong with being a port in a storm unless you tried to dock there permanently, they had decided. “I know. It’s just so  _ easy. _ ”

“The sweetest apples are the hardest to pick.” Man, he was  _ full  _ of shit like that, always ready to bust one out for any occasion.

“Sure, sure. This apple’s still pretty nice, though. Stay?”

“Until you sleep, yes.” V shuffled up the mattress to hit the switch for the light, plunging the room into darkness. She felt an arm drape over her waist and a warm body against her back.

“Oda-kun is a good man. No one is saying you need to fall desperately in love with him, but being something other than  _ alone _ would do you both good.”

“You’re just saying that so we won’t bitch about each other to you any more.”

“It would be a perk, yes.” There was the warm press of a kiss on her shoulder. “Good night, V.”

“Good night, Goro.”

\---

V woke up curled in the blankets on one side of a massive, empty mattress. Goro was gone, like she knew he would be. She stretched wide and rolled to where he had been, wanting to catch one last whiff of his scent, and was surprised to hear and feel the crinkling of paper on her face. Apparently, he was so overflowing with wisdom that he needed to leave some with her. It was Japanese, but her optics helpfully translated.

“ _ Naku semi yori nakanu hotaru ga mi wo kogasu.” _

_ Unlike the singing cicadas, the silent fireflies burn themselves. _

How was it possible he could hit her over the head with something like this and not even  _ be _ there? Incredibly unfair.

She stumbled around the apartment naked, sleep-bleary eyes hunting for her phone. She hadn’t seen it since the ride back to the apartment;  _ had she left it in the car? _

Ah, there it was, sitting on the couch end table by her haul from yesterday. She scrolled through her text messages and stopped when she saw Oda’s barrage from last night. Tiny pricks of guilt stung her chest as she read them.  _ He thought she was ignoring him to fool around with Goro. _ —which she had been, but not when he sent these. The dread of dealing with him finally pressed down heavily on her shoulders. 

**[V 08:13 AM]:**

_ Oda? I’m ready to give Hanako my answer. _

**[ODA 08:15 AM]:**

_ She can see you at 2:30. I will send a car. _

**[** **V 08:16 AM]:**

_ Thanks for trying to check in on me last night. _

_ My phone wasn’t on me. _

**[** **ODA 08:17 AM]:**

_ I know. _

V wasn’t sure she wanted to poke the bear any more right now, so she heaved a resigned sigh and started sifting through her bags of goodies. The whole ordeal might be a dumpster fire, but she was at least going to look good while she lit it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Scorpio for always speaking in metaphors, and to Mana for that ridiculous book that I hunted down for you and then promptly used. And always a thank you to the weird, horny-ass village at Lizzie's. I want to marry you all.


	11. Gonna Show You What All The Howling's For

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wow such somft, lorge cute.
> 
> Suggested listening: "You're The One That I Want," Lo-Fang (I _strongly_ encourage listening to this one, because it's 1) a great cover, and 2) too perfect.)

The rhythmic tapping of her fingertips on the table was doing little to soothe V’s nerves. The massive room—the same she had been in not 72 hours prior, with towering windows and inoffensive art—was designed to intimidate, she was sure, with its severe, angular furniture and wide landscape views. She felt perfectly comfortable with all that. It was the people that would soon be inside it.  _ Not even the people. Just the one person. _

She had put her best foot forward in the appearance department: a navy blue sheath dress with orange piping and a conveniently high collar—she had been drawn to it in the store, although the color combo wasn’t normally her style; hair braided to one side to camouflage any lingering marks the dress didn’t cover; appropriately conservative-yet-murderous looking heels; sleek, neutral makeup. If it weren’t for her snake around her arm, she would appear every inch the corpo career woman. V wondered if it would be enough to prove her sincerity.  _ Maybe I should’ve worn a blazer. _

The door swung open.

\---

**_[V 07:20 PM}:_ **

_ I know we’re fighting, but this place has  _

_ two  _ horishi  _ that do  _ irezumi _. Walk-ins only. _

_ Might get something done myself. _

[image]

[coordinates]

_ Oda stared at the text for several minutes, fingers tapping out replies and then deleting them just as quickly, before he decided to leave it unanswered. Were they…fighting? This kind of tension was foreign to him. His dalliances in the past had not allowed any room for this kind of entanglement; if they had, he was sure he would have abandoned them at the first sign of anything beyond the surface level.  _ So why hadn’t he been able to leave V alone?

_ He hadn’t spoken to her since she left headquarters. It hadn’t been that long, but the frequency with which they had been communicating or seeing each other made it feel much longer. Every time he thought about the way they had touched each other in the conference room, he was overcome with the tangled web of emotion from it: passion, possession, disappointment in his lack of self-control, frustration, anger. She had the ability to so easily open the tap on these reservoirs he had put on lock down for so long. It was unnerving. It was intoxicating. It was dangerous.  _

_ The longer he sat in his apartment, stewing in his own feelings, the closer he got to snapping, to desperately reaching out so he would have more than his own devils for company. When he finally did, he disguised it as concern.  _

**_[ODA 09:02 PM]:_ **

V, where are you? Are you at that

shop right now?

**_[ODA 09:02 PM]:_ **

That area is unsafe after dark.

**_[ODA 09:05 PM]:_ **

I can send a car for you.

**_[ODA 09:08 PM]:_ **

V?

**_[ODA 09:11 PM]:_ **

I know I have been…unkind, but at

least tell me if you are safe.

**_[ODA 09:13 PM]:_ **

V, please.

_ 10 minutes without a reply wasn’t all that alarming a time, Oda realized, but they were normally so synchronized—complementary clocks, ticking differently but keeping the same time—that her quiet unnerved him. He had never  _ fought _ before. Maybe this was normal. If it was, he hated it. _

_ The true discomfort settled in when she rejected his holo. And then did it again. Oda immediately pinged the only person he could think of that might have some insight. “Takemura-san.” _

_ “Oda-kun.” _

_ “I am sorry to trouble you, but I have had poor communication with V today, and I wondered if you had heard from her.” _

_ “She is safe. She is with me.” The relief he felt was almost immediately replaced by that smoldering green flame that had caused him nothing but trouble so far. _

_ Oda did his best to keep his tone level with his former master. “She has not responded to my texts or calls, and I do not know why.” _

_ “She has much on her mind, and I daresay you have not been very helpful, have you?” He blanched as he heard the words leave the older man’s mouth.  _ They had been talking. And maybe other things. __

_ “I do not…I have…” Negotiation and subtlety was always hard with Takemura-san. “What do you know?” _

_ “I know what I need to know.” Frustratingly oblique. The honesty spilled out of him unbidden.  _

_ “Takemura-san, I have grossly underestimated exactly how much taking on this project would consume me, professionally…and personally. Some days, it is all I can think about. She is so—she exceeds all expectations one moment, and then the next, it is as if she has absorbed nothing.” _

_ “I told you, Oda-kun, V is not a wild animal to be broken or molded in your image. You set yourself up for failure thinking this way.” _

_ “I cannot make her see that Hanako-sama’s offer—” _

_ Takemura cut off his thought before he could finish. “You believe Hanako-sama’s offer is the best choice from  _ your  _ perspective, but did you once stop to consider what it actually asks of  _ her _?” _

_ Oda didn’t have a good answer for that, which meant the real answer was “no.” It was easy to see V as only her post-Mikoshi incarnation; it seemed like another person had been in the warehouse in Night City with him during the parade, that had dashed off to fight Adam Smasher with fire in her eyes, that had agreed to surrender what had become literally a piece of her soul.  _ Soulkiller indeed.

_ “Not…thoroughly.” He didn’t know if this discomfort was easier or harder to sit with than the uncertainty of her radio silence. _

_ Another question rushed out of his mouth. “Takemura-san, what is your relationship with V? Is there something…going on?” He could feel the flush creep across his cheeks, even alone in his home. _

_ “There is nothing  _ going on _ between myself and V, Oda-kun. We have a history but are not entangled. She is a grown woman who seeks out what she wants and deserves no judgment for it.” Oda’s cheek twitched in irritation at the chastisement in the other man’s tone.  _

_ “I know that. I appreciate that she and I have grown up with…different interpretations of certain things. I understand her autonomy is non-negotiable, especially after everything.” _

_ “Have you expressed this to her?” _

_ “No.” _

_ “I thought not.” Something strange happened then. Oda opened his mouth to reply and heard a hiccup in Takemura-san’s breath, a tiny skip in the inhalation. His face remained immutable, but it was enough to prick up his ears. “Are you well, Takemura-san?” _

_ “I am fine. Continue.” Oda couldn’t stop narrowing his eyes in suspicion, but did as he was bid. _

_ “I do not understand what she does to me. She makes me compromise my control, my discipline, my emotions. How can one person possess such power? I am beside myself, Takemura-san. I know not how to master this fire.” _

_ “Oda-kun, may I suggest being candid? V has seen enough lies and deceit to last her several lifetimes. I suspect she will find the honesty refreshing.”  _ Hm. A novel approach, laying it all bare. Wait—there it was again,  _ The other man’s breathing had caught again, more obviously this time, and Oda could see the subtle twitch in his shoulder that meant a hand was moving outside the frame of the holo. A slow realization began to fan the embers of jealousy that had sparked earlier.  _

_ “Will you prove to me that V is there with you?” It was a bold move, indirectly challenging his superior’s honesty in this way, but he  _ had to know.  _ Maybe the evidence of V’s true self-ownership would finally put the green-eyed monster in its grave somehow. He did not miss Takemura-san’s irritated eye roll. Oda didn’t blame him. _

_ “I told you she was with me. Is this not sufficient?” _

_ “I have to…know, Takemura-san.” He was certain the other man caught his meaning as he heard him speak to someone else. _

“V, Oda-kun wishes to confirm your presence visually.”  _ A rustle, and then a voice he knew he would recognize instantly for the rest of his life.  _ “Go right on ahead and send him a picture, then.”

_ The sinking feeling in Oda’s stomach was anchored further by the hestitance in Takemura-san’s expression before he relented, muttering  _ “Very well”  _ to himself more than anything. Oda saw the movement of his shoulders and heard the shutter of a phone camera. _

_ “You brought this on yourself, Oda-kun.” _

**_[TAKEMURA-SAN 09:25 PM]:_ **

[image]

_ It was an inevitability that the picture would make Oda’s blood boil, but he didn’t realize just how hot until he saw it. Those deep brown eyes staring up at him, her mouth and hand wrapped around his mentor’s cock, long hair draping down her bare shoulders—the flare of anger was bright and molten, tempered at the forge by the knowledge that this was  _ her  _ choice and he had  _ no  _ authority to dictate otherwise. The steam from plunging the blade of frustration into the cool water of letting go escaped from his mouth. _

_ “If she were not such a  _ shameless  _ minx—Takemura-san, please tell her that—” _

_ “I will not be your messenger. Talk to her about it like the adults you are.” The older man’s tone was firm and final. _

_ “This petty photo is the work of a child. You call her an adult?” _

_ “Yes, she is an adult, even if she is not acting like it at the moment.”  _ At least he wasn’t the only one to think so. _ His lizard brain made him try one last time. _

_ “But—” _

_ “I am hanging up now, Oda-kun. Good night.” The screen went black and flickered away as the call cut out. _

_ It took everything Oda had to not send his phone flying across the room; he restrained himself only because of the number of devices he had already lost to this fate over the years. The bizarre chess match he and V had been playing these last few months was drawing to a close; he could feel it. The picture had moved her queen— _ who she was, he realized with a mirthless chuckle— _ within striking distance of his king. Who he was. _

_ He eventually fell asleep, replaying every move in his mind to see where he might have fallen. _

\---

Oda’s face was unreadable as he swept into the room, just as he had a few days ago, and evaluated the space. This time it was he who studiously avoided V’s gaze. “Hanako-sama.”

She stood from her seat as Hanako entered the room in gold today, a different flavor of ethereal untouchability. The woman spoke with something that sounded like warmth. “V. I am glad to see you so soon. Please, have a seat.”

“Thank you for making time to see me.”

“Of course.” The other woman pulled up the chair next to V again. “Please, do not keep me in suspense any longer.” It was offered with the ghost of a smile.  _ This lady might be alright after all. _

“I just need to ask a couple things, please. I have a cat in Night City.”

“Really?” Hanako breathed with surprise. “I had no idea they were still around there.”

“I got a little lucky, I think,” V deflected. “I know transporting animals internationally can be difficult. Will he be able to be brought over here to Japan? His name is Nibbles.” She  _ definitely _ saw a tiny smile from Hanako then.

“I will make it happen for you.”

V felt a weight she didn’t know she had been carrying released. She missed that hairless bum more than she thought she might. She continued on, hoping the good momentum would favor her. “I know that this arrangement will be  _ unorthodox.  _ Will there be opportunities to…have time to myself? Days off, as it were?”

Hanako was nodding vehemently before V was even done speaking. “Absolutely. V, you are a valuable asset to Arasaka and to myself, of course, but you are also a  _ person.  _ I have every intention of treating you as one.”

_ Dammit, was she going to cry right here in this conference room?  _ She took a sharp breath in, forcing the wetness back inside.

“I’ll do it.”

And there it was: a real, genuine smile from Hanako. “V, this is tremendous news.” The grin vanished into a look of gentle curiosity. “May I ask how you arrived at this decision?”

_Here we go._ V sucked in an uneven breath and started to speak, her eyes moving to where she could feel Oda’s boring into her. “I understand that many people worked to put aside their judgements and went to great personal risk to help me complete this journey. Arasaka has been more than generous; while I know it’s because I’m technically property, the time and care invested in my recovery has been undeniable.” She forced her eyes back to Hanako, who was studying her face very carefully. If she was aware that V hadn’t been speaking directly to her thus far, she didn’t show it. “I spent a lifetime—a literal lifetime—fighting for ideologies and concepts, flitting in the air, barely graspable. All I got for it was misery and death. And now I’m untethered, wondering in a desert of possibility. Manifestos and beliefs are nova, but the people behind them are what’s real—corporate royalty, street-rat orphans,  _ whoever. _ Underneath all the corporate gloss, I think you’re good people, Hanako.” Her eyes had wandered to Oda again. “Whatever my new direction is, I believe it is the same as yours.”

She didn’t realize her gaze was locked with Oda’s icy optics again until Hanako cleared her throat delicately. V ripped her eyes away. The blush that rose on her face was instantaneous. 

“Thank you for sharing this, V. I am so pleased.” Delicate, gold-capped fingers closed over her own for just a moment, giving V the courage to look up again. “We will work on getting your cybernetics installation scheduled immediately. Oda will see you out. You’ll hear from me soon.”

Hanako stood and V followed suit.  _ Just like that, it was done.  _ “Be well, V.” And then, in an echo of last time, the heiress exited the room, leaving V and Oda in a standoff.

V forced herself to keep her shoulders square and return his steady gaze, despite the urge to shrink away and hide the pink in her cheeks. He was studying her, unwaveringly, arms crossed across his chest. When he finally spoke, it was soft, and took her more by surprise than anything he’d ever growled at her harshly.

“You look very nice in that dress.”

She tried not to choke on her own shock. “Thank you. I liked the…colors.” She hesitated as the truth of the statement bumped up against the sudden realization about  _ where  _ she had seen the colors together before. Her heart jumped into her throat as he moved toward her from his post in the corner of the room; her ankle flexed, trying to force her to step back, but she resisted.

Oda felt the twinge in his heart as he approached her, watching her body language tense in preparation for flight.  _ Did she really think so little of him? _ He held out his elbow for her to take. “Let me walk you to the elevator.” She blinked at him once, twice, staring at his arm as if the courtesy were a strange convention for her, before slipping her hand into the crook.  _ From him, it probably was. _

They moved side by side in silence—not hostile, but not exactly comfortable, either. The fingers of his free hand twitched with the effort to not cover her hand with them, to do something,  _ anything _ , to let her know he had heard what she said. Oda was a master of the non-apology; his position demanded it of him. He could acknowledge missteps without taking blame with the best of them, and convey remorse without so much as breathing the word ‘Sorry.” What V had done in the conference room, though—break complex thoughts down to their barest truths without speaking them, broadcast directly to one audience while communicating with another? He was in awe.

“V.” They were almost to the elevator bank, and he couldn’t resist any longer.

“Hm?”

“What was the meaning of all that? In the conference room?” He pressed the DOWN button, knowing a car would be available far too soon.

“It was how I feel, Oda.” She turned to face him then, boldly bringing a hand to his face. The soft touch sent him reeling. “I don’t know what…this…is. I can’t ignore it, but I also can’t,  _ and won’t _ , change who I am for it. I hope we can figure it out, though.”

_ So that’s what this feeling is,  _ he thought as the doors to an elevator slid open and she let go of his face to step into it.  _ Hope. _

They raised their hands to flip each other off simultaneously, and the doors closed on their grins.

\---

Udon Know Me was completely wrong about one thing: they would know V very well indeed.

It was her second trip there in as many days, and she suspected it might become a regular haunt if every dish was as good as the two she had tried so far. She smiled and bowed her thanks, saying “Arigato” to the stout woman behind the counter as she left, turning towards the real reason she was down here again.

The door tinkled quietly as she pushed her way into the tattoo shop. Everything was just as she had seen it prior, with one large exception: the far bed, where she had seen the old  _ horishi _ last time, was hidden from view with a delicate rice paper accordion screen. She could see the subtle shadow of someone standing over the bed, where a body was laying.

“Eh?” Another man, thin and gangly and just as wrinkled as the other, sat on the stool by the open bed, eyeing her suspiciously. She quickly bowed. “Konichiwa. English?”

“Some, yes. You want tattoo?”

“Um, yes, please.” V reached into her purse and pulled out a piece of paper she had sketched hurriedly this afternoon, when the idea had struck her. She hadn’t been kidding about getting  _ irezumi _ done, and now that she was officially in the employ of Hanako Arasaka, it felt less like a fun experiment and more than a compulsion. She had tried not to think too deeply into the design that had poured out of her fingers unbidden. Tattoos didn’t have the same permanence that they once did. She could always get it removed or covered up.

She walked over to the  _ horishi  _ and handed it to him. “I already have that,” she pointed to the violet, “and I want to add that.” Her finger moved to indicate the dragon, its head peeking from behind a petal, while its body curled around another before disappearing so the tail could peek out again. 

“Where?”

“Here.” She pointed to the part of her pelvis where the flower resided.

The man grunted in acknowledgement. “Lie down. Head here,” gesturing toward the top of the bed. V did as he asked, watching as he started to pull down bottles from the shelves above her head. It was only when he reached for the tattoo gun that she said something.

“Um, wait.” He looked at her with confusion.

“Um.  _ Irezumi?”  _ She offered, cursing herself for not knowing more Japanese. She would need to learn. “ _ Tebori?” _ She threw out the other word she remembered from her research.

The  _ horishi  _ offered a surprised sort of scoff, putting down the bottle he had picked up and gesturing to the long stick with needles bound on it lying on the tray by her head. “Eh?”

“ _ Hai.”  _ V tried to sound more confident than she felt. She’d had dozens of tattoos done in her life; big, small, colored, black and white, on her hands, on her neck, on her ass, everywhere. So why was this one making her so nervous?  _ It’s not the method of application, it’s the subject matter. _ She shushed the voice and offered an affirming nod to the man, who picked up other bottles and went to work mixing ink.

V settled onto the bed, pulling her loose summer dress up to her stomach and rearranging her thong so her violet was unobstructed with room around it to work. The  _ horishi _ settled on his stool, sterile gloves on, and tucked a thin, disposable cloth around the hem of her panties as a barrier. He held up some sort of marker. “Draw first.”

“Okay,” she nodded at him. She settled her head back, turning to one side to look at the shadows through the backlit rice paper of the divider. The other  _ horishi _ was working somewhere on the person’s midsection, perhaps the lower back. Their head was oriented the same way as hers, feet toward the door, but that was all the detail she could ascertain.  _ Which was probably the point. _

She felt a nudge and saw a hand mirror tilted so she could see what the man had come up with. The dark lines of the dragon were a stark contrast to the soft colors of the violet. It was perfect.

“ _ Hai. _ It looks great.” She gave the  _ horishi _ a thumbs-up, which earned an amused huff of breath. She propped herself on one elbow so she could see him as he braced his hand against her and loaded the needles up with ink. “Can I watch a little?”

“Yes.” Without further ado, he poked her a few times. “What it feels like.”  _ That wasn’t so bad.  _ The poke was sharper than with a tattoo gun, but over quicker. She nodded again. “Not so bad.”

“Unless big. Lie down.” She did as instructed, pondering his words as he started up his poking again. She could see how the sensation would quickly become more intense after the few hours needed for a larger tattoo.  _ Like Oda’s. _

V wondered what working with him practically every day would do to her resolve. She was capable of working with outputs ( _ Christ, is that what he was?) _ , had done so in the past; she had no doubt Oda was the picture of self-restraint in the office—whatever that meant for them..  _ But then again, he did fuck you into next week in the conference room two days ago. _

She was lost in her thoughts enough to not really notice when the two  _ horishi  _ brothers started chatting to each other. It was only the genuine chuckle from her own artist that snapped her from her reverie. “What’s so funny?” she asked, doing her best to sound casual.

“Brother ask what you get. He say man get similar.”

“The guy he’s working on is getting the same tattoo?”

“Eh. He finish big dragon. Get small snake on tail. Like this dragon.” He gestured toward where he was working and bent his head down again.

“Weird,” she offered before turning her head toward the divider once more. Her heart was pounding in her throat suddenly.  _ There was no way.  _ These guys probably finished “big dragons” all the time. They were probably the dragon-finishing guys.  _ But a snake on the tail? _ She had told Oda that he absolutely couldn’t call her “little serpent.” Hard on the face, as she recalled. He had been the first one to see her resurrected snake tattoo, but there’s no way he could have  _ known  _ that.  _ Was there? _

V could reach the divider easily from where she lay; the shop was tiny. Her  _ horishi _ was concentrating on her tattoo, and her surreptitious fingers went unnoticed as they reached out to curl around the frame of the divider. They were trembling a little, but she chalked it up to nerves. She didn’t want to move it out of the way completely. Not even partially. She just needed enough for the forehead, the top of the ear, the hairline.  _ Now, if I can just keep this quiet… _

“You are not as sneaky as you think.” Warm fingers pressed on top of her own on the divider, but the real thrill that shot through her was from the voice, gravel and conceit that she had utterly failed to be charmed by.

She heard the  _ horishi _ behind the divider make a sudden noise, and a reply in Japanese. The response was not from the hidden artist but her own. “You know?”

She swallowed hard.  _ How foolish she would look if she were wrong.  _ “ _ Hai. _ ” He shrugged, offering what must have been the affirmative to the other artist, who spoke again to the mystery client. 

The screen slowly folded down, by just enough that a messy ponytail, piercing blue optics, and a smirk could be seen. Oda was face down on his table, his head turned toward her while it rested on one arm. His hand was still on hers over the divider, and she would get viciously stabbed by tiny needles forever if it meant he would keep touching her.

“Could’ve done it no problem with optics.” 

“Optics would not have kept me from recognizing your hand.”

“You spend a lot of time staring at my hands? Creepy, Oda.”

“I have stared at more than that with little complaint.” V’s mouth went dry. She wasn’t sure how they were going to crawl back to normality from where they had been, but it looked like he had a plan. She needed to regroup properly, and apparently the definition of “regrouping properly” now involved prying her fingers off the divider and catching his in her own, creating a casual, dangling rope bridge of promise between them. 

‘How long have you been here?”

“Two hours, perhaps. I will still need to return for the background, but I am grateful to know where to go. Thank you for telling me.”

_ He was being so goddamn sincere, and he hadn’t let her hand go.  _ “Sure thing. I’m not a complete dick.”

“No, that would be me, I am afraid.”

“Oda—” Her statement was cut off by a wince; her  _ horishi _ had started to work over areas with second passes, and it was definitely more painful than the first time.

“Uncomfortable?”

“Uh, it’s not the nicest feeling the longer it goes on, no,” she admitted grudgingly. “I can’t imagine all the hours it’s taken for yours.”

“It has been many,” he confirmed. “But not all at once.”

“It’s really fuckin’ cool.” He inclined his head slightly in acknowledgement. She thought he might be blushing a little. 

“Why are you here?”

_ Well, this is awkward. _ “I, uh, wanted to commemorate today somehow. This seemed appropriate.”

“Where is your dragon going?” Of course he had heard both conversations about the tattoos.

“Around my violet.” There was a pregnant pause; the significance of it did not miss him.

“Why is it that you chose a violet in the first place?”

_ Oh, shit. I guess we’re going there. He probably already knows anyway, from all the medical records.  _ “It’s my name.”

The expression of surprise on Oda’s face indicated he clearly had  _ not _ known that. “‘V’ stands for Violet?”

“Yeah.”

“That is…” Words seemed to escape him for a moment. It was a new thing for her to see. “It is quite beautiful.”

“Thanks.” It was V’s turn to blush now, cheeks burning hot for him the second time that day.

“My first name is Sandayu.” It was a sweet offering, and she took it graciously.

“Sandayu,” she rolled it around on her tongue. “Should I be calling you that?”

“Please do not.” He made a slightly horrified face that brought a smile to her face. “I much prefer Oda.”

“Alright. You know I’ll kill you if you call me Violet, right?”

“I assumed as much.” 

“Gre- _ ah— _ great.” The  _ horishi _ must have been doing tiny details or something, she figured, because the stinging pokes were growing still sharper. Her eyes clenched shut involuntarily.

“Shh,” she heard from behind closed lids.  _ Was he…soothing her? _ The soft strokes she felt smoothing across the back of her hand confirmed her suspicions.

“V?”

“Yeah?”

“May I take you home after this?” Someow, the politeness of the question was even more sexual than when she had demanded it of him in the stairwell, that night that felt like an eternity ago by now.

“Yes, Oda.” 

“Excellent.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I basically went hard in the other direction of all of @ScorpioInk's fics so people could have a balm for their wounded souls. Thank you, @Tinmunky, for being the other half of my editor soul, and to all my absolute babes at Lizzie's.


	12. Let Me Lay Waste To Thee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here we are, friends! Mucho thanks to @ScorpioInk, @Tinmunky, @shenanigan_manifesto, @postmodernsleaze, and all my babes on the Lizzie's server.
> 
> Suggested listening: "Crazy," Nothing But Thieves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading, everyone! If you'd like to yell things at me about what to write next, please take a second to fill out this [Google Form here!](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeLicJp78j2TqsdoC9Cx5ovquHXRdzuTL5OICGSXNCAsDNAEw/viewform?usp=sf_link)

_ “Two hours!” The  _ horishi  _ that had worked on V called after her and Oda one last time as they left the shop together. V’s tattoo had been completed a few minutes before his, despite his having arrived much earlier. The conversation had tapered the longer the appointment stretched; Oda had watched her suck in breaths through her nose and breathe them out trembling lips, brows drawn together against the pain of the needles being shoved into already-traumatized skin. He wasn’t exactly comfortable himself, but he had done this many times before, and the place he was getting his done was considerably more padded with muscle. He had rubbed circles into her hand with his thumb, both to provide a distraction for her and to help him process the overwhelming desire to kiss that grimace off her face. _

_ He had come to stand behind her while they received the traditional post-care instructions: leave the med-skin patch on for two hours; after it was removed, the tattoo was safe to touch but avoid scrubbing hard for a few days; expect some minor itching. The  _ horishi _ had not missed the way they seemed to be leaning against each other, desperate for contact, and shouted the instruction about  _ “no touching tattoo”  _ again as the tinkling bells ushered them out into the street and the future. _

\---

“Oda, where are we going?” V was proud of herself for noticing that the car was headed in a decidedly different direction than what was now her home, especially given the fact that Oda had draped her across his lap as soon as they hit the backseat and hadn’t taken his lips off of some part of her—face, mouth, neck, shoulders, arms, hands—since the door closed.

“My apartment. It is closer.” His voice was muted by her skin, his hot breath ghosting over the damp places his mouth had been and sending a shiver zipping down her spine.

“It won’t speed up how long we have to wait before the med patches come off.” She saw her opening and took it, bending her head to lock her lips onto the delicate sliver of skin behind his ear that his cybernetics didn’t cover. The noise he made, low and needy, made her send up a prayer of thanks to whatever Arasaka engineer decided his endoskeleton didn’t need to extend up that far.

The blunt bite of his fingernails scratched against her thighs where he had worked his hands under her dress. “Fine. I wish to see you come utterly undone underneath me in my own bed, where I am certain no one has touched you but me. Satisfied?”

Out of all the things he could’ve said, he had to pick one that would make her pump the brakes. “Oh, Oda…” she sighed against his ear, her forehead lingering on his before she found the resolve to pull away and look at him. His optics shone in the lights of street lights flickering by, watching her with rapt attention. “Do we need to…ugh,  _ talk  _ about anything? Because it sounds like we do.”

_ “You have arrived at your destination.” _ The pleasant, robotic voice of the AI chimed as the car pulled into the circle drive of a luxe-looking high-rise building. The door swung open automatically, and V grudgingly shuffled off of Oda’s lap and out of the car; she did not miss how he took an extra second to adjust himself, or how he didn’t answer her, before taking her hand and leading her though the impressively-vaulted lobby.

_ There it was again. _ It struck her suddenly as they stood in silence, fingers interlaced, waiting for the elevator to arrive. That familiarity, the  _ comfort _ of it. A set of brushed chrome doors slid open and they stepped in; V watched with interest as he approached a black panel and pressed his hand against it. “Oda and guest.”

“Guest, huh?” The lift shifted smoothly upward. She thought she felt him give her hand a squeeze.

“After your cybernetics are installed, we can have your biometrics registered.”

“Bold of you to assume I’d need that.” The doors slid open, revealing a long hallway with identical, nondescript doors.  _ I would always barge into my neighbor’s, _ V thought, but Oda led her confidently to one door of many and pressed his hand against another biopanel. 

Oda was going to bring her in, sit her down, and have a serious, adult conversation, like Takemura-san had recommended. He knew they needed to do it; the air between them felt clear but loaded, like the sky before a thunderstorm. That  _ mouth _ , though—she just couldn’t keep it shut; it meant he had to do it for her, which is how she ended up crushed between him and his door with one of his thighs wedged roughly between her own. “I intend to make sure you  _ want _ that.” His fingers dug into the flesh of her hips, pulling her against the press of his leg and delighting in the whimper she gave to him. If those sweet noises were currency, he would work hard to become a rich man.

V whined at the pressure of his muscular thigh against her center, hips rocking involuntarily to chase the friction. Her fingers laced together behind his neck, yanking his mouth down to hers for an impatient, determined kiss. Her tongue licked its way into his mouth, intent on discovering his secrets through exploration; he responded in kind, pulling her lower lip in between his own to suck and bite. Her lungs were burning by the time she wrenched away, chest heaving and pupils dilated so wide her irises were all but gone. She could feel how wet she was just from this; she was sure the evidence would be visible on his leg.

“Oda, we have to sort this out,” she reminded him breathily. He grunted his reluctant assent, freeing her from the press of his body and pulling her further into the apartment. It was sleek, corporate, and sterile: dark furniture with cold silver accents, glass tables, industrial lighting. The only color came from the splashes of neon in the Tokyo skyline, breaking through the blinds on the picture windows. She wondered how many nights a year he even spent here, with Hanako traveling and at the Arasaka compound so much.

The bed was sprawling and minimalist, sitting on a frame on the floor; its pristine, white linens were stretched perfectly over the mattress. Oda tried to lead her there, but V’s logical brain was just present enough to offer resistance, digging her heel in to stop his momentum. “We won’t talk over there and you know it.”

“Very well,” he grumbled petulantly.  _ That shouldn’t be as adorable as it is _ , she thought fleetingly as they settled on the couch instead. He had his hand wrapped around her bare thigh before she could even register what was happening, and she barely had the wherewithal to grab his wrist, stopping his sinister plans with great effort.

“C’mon, pretty boy, chill out for a second.” She saw his lips press themselves into that telltale thin line of annoyance. She realized she had never called him  _ anything _ “boy” to his face before, and she imagined she would be doing it a lot in the future if he kept that reaction up. It was unfortunate that irritating him seemed to make her so happy.  _ Gotta figure that out. _

“So?” Oda looked at her expectantly. It wasn’t fair of him, really; he knew that he had a lot more to explain than she did, but  _ Christ _ , the idea of willingly opening the tap terrified him. He was supposed to keep it closed up tight— _ everyone _ , from his parents to his bosses to Takemura-san had drilled that into him at one point or another.

It was like she read his mind. “You want to know about my relationship with Goro, I assume?” He nodded his assent, afraid of what jealousy-driven bile he might spit if he answered. “We’re just friends; we agreed on that a lifetime ago. We were there for each other when no one else was…well, I guess you know.” Her hand came up to rub at the bridge of her nose and she heaved a heavy sigh. “Sometimes sex happens. It’s not more than that. He’s been my only safe haven. I don’t know how else to describe it. I don’t even know if you’d understand.” Oda didn’t, not really. He could tell she was as uncomfortable talking about it as he was listening to it. He uncurled his fingers from her leg to grab her hand again. He didn’t know why he wanted to do that so much.  _ It just felt right. _

V stared at where he had intertwined his fingers with hers again while he listened quietly. “I know that you have a special relationship with him, too. That we’ll both be seeing a lot of him. And if this,” she gestured between them with their locked fingers, “is gonna fuck that up, or make work weird, then it’s gotta stop.”

Oda could only scoff at the suggestion, a preservation instinct against the reality of the statement. “I would never compromise the caliber of my work or the workplace—” she silenced him with an arched eyebrow; a slight flush colored his cheeks as he understood what she was referring to and accepted it. “I will respect your relationship with Takemura-san. I understand that it is important to you.”

“Even if we fuck?”

It was Oda’s turn to sigh. “You are your own woman. Whatever sort of…supervisory role I had over your recovery perhaps made me proud—”

“—oh, I think you were plenty proud before, but do go on.”

He scowled at her, his free hand coming up to close over her mouth. “Hush, brat.” He felt her breath hitch at the word and it was all he could do to not devour her on the spot. “Your …wildness is part of you, and I do not wish to stifle it. I find it…attractive.” His head dipped slightly, avoiding her gaze; he wished his hair wasn’t pulled back. 

V wiggled her head slightly, just enough to press a kiss to the fingertips on her lips before she opened and gently slid one into her mouth, watching his head snap back up and his eyes grow wide again as she sucked on the digit. His other hand tried to curl into a ball but met resistance from her own where they were intertwined; he had to settle for digging his fingertips in until it smarted. She was about to bite down hard to discourage him when she saw his optics flash red momentarily, then heard him speak.

“We can take off our med patches now.” He withdrew his finger from her mouth and encouraged her to stand, pulling her along until they were in the alcove where the bed was. From here she could see the oversized mirror that leaned against the wall opposite the foot of the bed, next to a cupboard she could only assume was his wardrobe.

“Sex mirror? Kinky, Oda,” V commented with her back to him, and received a sharp slap on the ass in return.

“Come undress me.” His tone had changed; gone was the practiced patience of the couch, replaced with something darker, raspier, and she was suddenly feeling a little tentative.  _ Don’t be ridiculous _ , she told herself, turning to face him and reaching for the fabric of his shirt. He allowed her to tug the tails from his trousers, cradling her head in his hands with something approaching tenderness. Her pulse was thundering in her ears; she made the mistake of looking up, seeing the thinly-veiled lust in his icy eyes. She swallowed thickly as her fingers fumbled the line of buttons open, revealing the smooth expanse of skin, muscle, and metal underneath. Encouraging the shirt down and off his shoulders, she reached for his belt next, but was stopped by his hands over her own, sliding her palm down to his crotch , where he was already rock hard. A groan stuttered out of him at the encouraged contact, his forehead resting on hers. “V…”

The exaltation dropped from Oda’s mouth straight into her loins; her fingers were suddenly working frantically at his belt buckle and zipper, shoving his pants and boxer briefs roughly down over his hips to his knees. “Get them off.” She barely recognized her own voice; she whipped her dress over her head and sent it flying by his head as he finished disrobing. She kicked her panties off and to the side in time to look up and catch half a glimpse of his gloriously erect cock before he had turned his back to her, gesturing to the hand-sized white patch on the upper swell of his left buttock.

“Would you?”  _ Would she? Would she  _ ever. She peeled it away slowly, revealing the freshly-pigmented skin underneath before tossing the patch aside. The space for scales in the dragon’s tail had been filled in with fresh blue ink, cerulean and opaque. There was a new fan on the end of the tail, fiery orange and perfectly symmetrical —and that’s where she saw it. Peeking out from the crests, a slithering black snake weaved its way through them to wrap around the smallest point of the dragon’s tail, entwining itself with the bigger creature.

V couldn’t fight the grin that tugged at her lips as she stepped back to take in the entire piece, and the entire man baring himself to her completely for the first time. Metal, muscle, and meticulous detail all rolled into one deadly package. “You’re so fucking  _ beautiful, _ Oda.” The predatory smile he gave her over his shoulder as he turned back around made her knees weak.

“I could say the same about you.” He approached and sank to his knees in front of her; she was too surprised to do anything but rest her hands on his shoulders as he reached for her own patch and removed it, revealing the devilish-looking dragon peeking between the soft petals of her previous tattoo. He looked at it with a reverence that almost made V uncomfortable; he smoothed his thumb over the surface gently before looking up at her, holding her gaze as he pressed a soft kiss over her new decoration. 

“Fierce and gorgeous,” Oda murmured against her skin, unsure of exactly who he was talking to, only knowing that the words needed to be spoken, feeling her fingers brush along his jaw and ear. “A wild flower.  _ My wildflower _ .” She had broken him and he was bowing now, swearing fealty to the force of nature that was this woman.  _ Checkmate. _

His words shot a shiver up V’s spine; they had  _ just _ talked about autonomy on the couch, but right now she wanted nothing more than to earn that nickname over and over again for the rest of her life. She encouraged him over toward the bed, allowing him to help her down onto it; he didn’t need any urging to stretch his frame out over hers, the hot press of so much skin touching at once enough to make her whimper under him even before he latched his mouth onto hers. 

She was so  _ soft _ beneath him: her lips yielding to his tongue, soft flesh giving to his hands as he squeezed her breasts, sides, thighs, wet heat accepting two fingers easily as he pressed them inside her. It made him chuckle darkly against her lips. “I love how soaked you get for me, whore.”

The noise that V let out was low and wanton, hips curling eagerly into his hand, encouraging them deeper. “It’s all for you, corpo brat,” she panted, the ghost of a smirk on her face. If he drew this out, she might die; blessedly, he responded to her movements and touched her impatiently, thumb pressing hard against her clit and spooling her up towards a climax quickly. Her hands scrabbled at his shoulders, gripping his arms tightly while he dragged his mouth down her neck, the tenderness at odds with how frantically he was working his fingers inside her.

“I want you to come so hard you scream my name, understood?” He didn’t hear a reply beyond incoherent whimpers; he could feel her getting close, walls starting to flutter around his digits. His free hand reached for her face, her eyes rolled up toward the ceiling, and gave her cheek a light slap; nothing too hard, but enough that she snapped back from her stupor, glaring with wide eyes. “ _ Understood?”  _ V nodded this time, and Oda responded by slowing his hand and withdrawing his fingers, making her wail of frustration echo off the apartment walls.  _ If he wanted screaming, she’d give him screaming. _ She hooked a foot around his calf and took advantage of his one-handed balance, rolling to the side and pulling hard; he was on his back with a soft “oof” a moment later and she climbed astride him, sinking down onto his length the in the same eager motion.

She wasn’t sure who moaned louder, but it didn’t matter; they both groaned again as she rolled her hips against his, setting a fast and eager pace to chase her release. “Oda,  _ fuck _ —” Her hands pressed heavily on his chest as she leaned in, using him as leverage for harder, rougher thrusts. It was all he could do to anchor her as best he could and hang on.

“Such a desperate little slut,” he growled at her, wetting a thumb between his lips and reaching forward to work at that delicate bundle of nerves as she rocked. Her mouth hung open, sucking in shallow breaths as her eyes, unfocused, settled on his face. He would never get sick of the sight. Her hips started to stutter. “Come for me, V.”

“Oh-Oda!” She did as instructed, violently; the pleasure snapped through her roughly, sending shudders into her legs and arms, fingernails cutting half-moons into the smooth skin of his chest and making him hiss. 

She wasn’t sure when he had flipped her; she was still shivering in the aftermath of her climax when she found herself on her hands and knees, wild hair and flushed face visible in the mirror. Hiss eyes bored into hers through the reflection, nudging her knees farther apart and sliding back inside her in one smooth, languid motion. She could see the whimper fall from her mouth and the tortured half-smile that pulled on his own as he thrust into her hard enough to make her fist her hands in the sheets. 

The sound of their union echoed in the sparse apartment and filled Oda’s ears, a depraved symphony he wanted to play on repeat. He reached forward, filling a hand with V’s dark locks and yanking roughly; her back bowed and her body jerked upward against his, baring her throat and bouncing tits as he continued his relentless assault. He smiled against her face, hissing into her ear. “What a pretty little whore, look at how well you take me.” He watched her eyes drop to where their bodies were meeting and saw the flush deepen across her cheeks. She was impossibly hot and slick around him, and he felt the pressure that had been steadily building in his groin threatening to boil over. He released her hair in favor of curling a hand around her throat, the other reaching to rub circles around her clit. “Would you like to watch yourself come apart around me, wildflower?”

The noises that were pouring out of V were unintelligible: garbled pleading, whines of pleasure, whimpers of his name. She nodded enthusiastically and prayed it was sufficiently clear, her hands struggling to brace themselves on his thighs, damp with sweat. His fingers were plucking expertly at her bundle of nerves and he was sliding over the perfect spot inside her with each powerful thrust. She was gasping at the edge within moments.

“After you come, I am going to paint you with mine,” he rasped in her ear, and it was enough to pull her back enough for her to shake her head against the press of his fingers on her neck.

“No!” To his credit, he didn’t stop moving, just perked an eyebrow up and slowed his hand on her.

V swallowed hard, mouth dry from panting. “Inside. That’s for  _ you.”  _ The ferocity with which he kissed her then, along with his redoubled efforts to make her lose herself, showed he understood her perfectly; he only wrenched his mouth away at the last moment, grabbing her chin and turning her face forcefully toward the mirror as she started to crest again.

“V,” he groaned against her, eyes locked on hers as her pleasure caused him to peak, hips jerking fiercely as he emptied himself into her. Her legs gave out first, sliding out from under her and bringing them tumbling to the mattress side by side, chests heaving in unison.

She wasn’t sure how long they lay there, saying nothing, Oda slowly softening still inside. He eventually gently moved away from her, pressing a kiss to her shoulder before disappearing into the bathroom. She wondered if that was a sign for her to get dressed and go; it would be with other men.  _ But Oda wasn't like other men. _

She had gotten as far as putting her undies back on before he came around the corner again. “What are you doing?” he asked, blinking at her. He was holding a bottle of water in each hand.

“I thought that was my cue, to…you know,” she finished lamely, jerking a thumb towards the door.

“You are one of the dumbest people I have ever met,” he said, pushing a water bottle into her hand and then pushing her back down onto the bed, where she landed with a squeak. V swallowed some of her beverage, unaware of how thirsty she was until she tried to quench it.

“At least I’m not an insufferable snob,” she countered, crawling under the now-rumpled covers, watching Oda follow after her. The lights, which she didn’t remember him ever turning on, dimmed low with the press of his hand on the side of the bed frame. She couldn’t help but snicker. 

“This place is like the ultimate fuck pad, you know that? Dimmer, huge mirror, big picture window to slam a girl up against. I haven’t seen it, but I’m assuming there’s a bathtub big enough to fuck in, and a kitchen island big enough to bend someone over.”

“Keep talking,” he muttered against her shoulder, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her tight against him once more, “I am making notes.”

\---

**[GORO 11:43 AM]:**

_V. You and Oda seemed…_

_ comfortable in that meeting. _

**[V 11:44 AM]:**

_ He is literally my only co-worker, _

_ Goro. Am I not supposed to be  _

_ comfortable with him? _

**[GORO 11:45 AM]:**

_ Do not sass me. I have not heard _

_ from either of you in weeks, and _

_ then I see you crawling over each other _

_ while the lights are down for the presentation. _

**[V 11:47 AM]:**

_ We were sitting on the same couch. _

_ Don’t be dramatic. _

**[GORO 11:48 AM]:**

_ It was a chair. Meant for one body. _

**[V 11:49 AM]:**

_ I was in it first. Take it up with Oda. _

**[GORO 11:50 AM]:**

_ I intend to take it up with both of you _

_ over dinner and drinks. : ) _

**[V 11:51 AM]:**

_ Don’t threaten me with a good time, _

_ old man! : P _

**[GORO 11:52 AM]**

_ Careful what you wish for, little serpent. ; ) _

\---

_ No one had used these conference rooms in weeks; he wasn’t even sure why they needed to check them. But Yuri was new, the bottom of the very, very long feeding chain at Arasaka, and eager to impress, and so he set off down the long hall, dutifully shaking empty trash cans into his big wheeled bin. _

_ There was an occasional candy wrapper, perhaps an empty coffee cup, but the overwhelming majority were as empty as they had been since the last time this was done. He wasn’t even looking as he shook them now, and the soft whump that landed at the bottom of the big bin took him by surprise in the 12th room of the night. _

_ They were panties. Well,  _ had been  _ panties. More like black lace tatters now. It should shock him, and he supposed it would, if he hadn’t already found two other pairs. _


	13. The Bite That Binds, The Gift That Gives

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For all intents and purposes, this story **ends** after Chapter 12. These next two chapters are 1) a gift for all my bbs at Lizzie's, and 2) self-indulgent, filthy smut. You certainly don't need to read them if you are not inclined.
> 
> Suggested Listening: "Breathe," Legs Occult

“Are you really going to wear that?”

“I definitely am  _ now, _ thank you.” The “that” in question was a bandage sheath dress, modest in length and neckline; it was a dark crimson, almost black, at the shoulders, the color gradually transforming to a bold, cherry red at the hem. It was completely backless, and V could see Oda staring at her hungrily in the mirror as she inspected herself one last time.

“Tease.” There was no heat in the insult—if anything, it was affectionate. Whatever  _ this _ was with Oda had settled, after several months, comfortably into some nebulous middle ground between “long-term booty call” and “mainline”; they saw each other almost every day while working under Hanako, and rarely fell asleep in one’s bed without the other. He knew how she took her coffee; she knew how to hang his shirts in the wardrobe. V had succeeded in making a few friends: Dai, Hiro, Aiko (although she suspected this was more of a “frenemies” situation, given the glares she had caught from the woman on the occasions she and Oda were in the hall together), a bubbly girl named Yua that she saw at the gym frequently. She had, by all measurable metrics,  _ adjusted. _

And then there was Goro.

He had been right when he said that they would be traveling together frequently; she saw him on planes, in conference rooms, at the compound. He had come over shortly after Nibbles had arrived with a packet of tuna, trying to coax the traumatized cat out of his carrier (it had worked). She would be lying if she said it wasn’t a comfort to have him around, even peripherally. Oda had been surprisingly calm whenever his former master came up in conversation and refreshingly convivial in exchanges where all three of them were present. Of course, neither V nor Goro had pursued the opportunity for an intimate moment since she and Oda had started whatever it was they were doing. 

Her heart thrummed just a little faster as Oda joined her in front of the mirror, casually draping a hand on her hip; he was in all black, hair pulled back with the exception of the few stubborn strands in the front that refused to be tamed. They looked good together. Sleek. Sophisticated. Sexy. Dangerous. “We need to go, wildflower. You know Takemura-san and punctuality.”

She nodded, looking more confident than she felt. Her nerves were jangling loudly in her head.  _ Don’t be ridiculous. This is just dinner with your lover and your…friend that is also occasionally a lover.  _ “Okay, just hold on a second.” Her heels clicked on the floor as she shuffled into the kitchen, pulling a bottle of chilled vodka from the fridge. She unscrewed the cap and took a swig, wincing against the burn, before returning it to its home. Oda watched her, perplexed, as she swanned by him out of the apartment, already eased by the warmth in her tummy. “What?”

\---

They had arrived with plenty of time to spare, and Goro was still waiting for them patiently in the glass-encased lobby of yet another modern-looking luxury high-rise building. V didn’t understand how anyone could tell them apart, and she resisted craning her neck upward to gawk as Oda helped her from the car. 

Goro was wearing all white, as he was wont to do for more formal occasions; it still took her breath away even after she’d seen it several times. The light in the lobby was slinky and warm leading to the entrance to the restaurant they were visiting; he looked insidious in the best way, his silvery optics reflecting as he watched her approach appreciatively. “V for ‘vision,’ I see.” He accepted her kiss on the cheek gracefully.

“Don’t need to flatter me, you already said you were paying for this and there’s no going back now,” she replied amicably. The older man’s attention turned to his former protege, bending slightly in a bow. “Oda-kun. I am glad to have this time with you two.”

“As am I, Takemura-san,” Oda returned the bodily gesture and straightened. V noticed he was standing a little closer to her than he might otherwise; he had his hand planted firmly in her own. For the briefest of moments, she thought she saw an unspoken communication fly between the two men, but before she could focus in, Goro was holding an arm out for her to take, waving at the slight man standing behind the host station, who started shuffling some papers about and gesturing to the other maitre d' behind him.

She froze momentarily, staring at Goro’s elbow; in any other circumstance, she would happily take it, but half of her was tethered to the uncertainty holding her hand next to her. Deep brown eyes caught onto ice blue optics, the subtle cock of her eyebrow asking the unspoken question that had been plaguing her for the better part of the day:  _ how is this gonna work? _

The answer was surprising: a hand squeeze that was unmistakably reassuring and a nod of his head. It wasn’t permission, exactly, nor had V been asking for it. It was more of a temperature check that had come back perfectly normal, and so she slipped her hand into the crook of Goro’s elbow, allowing herself to be led forward while keeping a firm grip on Oda’s hand. If Goro thought this was unusual in any way, he didn’t betray it to her; he spoke swift Japanese to the man at the host station, who replied with equal parts deference, awe, and fear before leading them down a long walkway that stretched the length of the dimly-lit restaurant.

V could feel the eyes on their trio as they moved through the space: heads peeked over menus to watch, dipped together over candles to whisper to one another as the demonic parade swept by: Lucifer, Lilith, and Caliban in their finery. 

“Oda, why is everyone staring at us? I mean, I know we’re good-looking, but this is downright rude for Japan.” She kept her voice low.

“Arasaka owns this restaurant.”  _ Of course it does.  _ “Everyone here knows who Takemura-san is and who I am.” She felt him drop her hand, feeling the warm pressure of it on her bare lower back a moment later. “And they all  _ want _ to know who you are.”

“And why you look good enough to eat, little serpent,” Goro added, equally discreet and a more-than-a-little surprising addition to the commentary. He was so  _ casual _ about it. 

They mercifully arrived at their table, a tucked-away affair in one corner, with wide, brocade-covered benches enclosing three sides. She was ushered into it, still surrounded by Goro on one side and Oda on the other. The light was low, tinted slightly warm and red by the votives on the table. The furtive glances from other diners were at least harder to see now. 

“I wasn’t trying to cause a stir, honest,” she offered to the men, suddenly feeling scrutinized, although by whom, she wasn’t sure. “I didn’t want to be the dirty  _ gaijin _ who embarrassed you. Not tonight, anyway.”

Oda’s lips twisted into a smirk, painted devilish in the candlelight. “Your ‘dirty  _ gaijin’  _ secret is safe with us, wildflower.” Two pet names in as many minutes had set V’s heart thumping in her chest. She pushed her hair away from her face to find two sets of cool optics studying her carefully;  _ there it was again. _ They exchanged a glance between them that they thought she wasn’t quick enough to catch.

“Are you two going to tell me what’s going on or just keep talking with your eyes all night long?” A cough of surprise from Goro; Oda had the decency to look a little bashful. The older man’s hand closed on her knee, patting it gently.

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” he replied in a way that made V think he knew _ exactly _ what she was talking about. “Now, let us show you what  _ food _ actually is.”

\---

_ Food _ , as it turned out, was a divine experience, guided by Goro’s excellent selections and a couple of Oda’s suggestions as well. Everything was so  _ amplified _ : salty, sweet, bitter, acidic, that mysterious fifth flavor ( _ umami,  _ Goro had called it, after feeding her a bite of  _ something  _ with fish sauce that made her actually moan out loud when it had touched her tongue). The sake was buzzing in V’s veins; she didn’t even think she  _ liked _ sake, but this one had been light and sweet, hinting at cherry. She supposed she might be embarrassed at the quantity she had consumed if it hadn’t seemed like Oda and Goro were matching her.

The master and his student had thoroughly surprised her at every turn this evening: speaking amicably, responding good-naturedly to ribbing, silently abiding by some sort of strange rhythm of sharing her attention. She was certain something was being plotted and too far gone on endorphins and rice wine to worry about it.

“…you certainly would not have succeeded if it had not been for the gong, Oda-kun.”

“I suppose we will never know,” Oda had responded with amusement in his voice, tossing back the rest of his ceramic cup of sake. He had pressed in closer to V as the night had gone on, sitting with one arm slung over the back of her seat; the heat from his body was palpable. She had tried to shuffle away from the distracting closeness only to find herself pushed up against Goro on the other side, his broad chest angled toward her as they talked. His hand had found her leg as soon as she repositioned, curling around her knee casually. 

The server had done the best of jobs hiding whatever surprise he felt at the trio’s…familiarity as it grew throughout the evening, but even she could see the way his eyebrows shot up when he approached them again and found her leaning against Goro with Oda still in close proximity. She felt a heat rise in her cheeks;  _ if she was supposed to be behaving, why were they making it so hard for her? _

“Are you ready for dessert, V?” Goro asked after giving some instructions to the server in soft Japanese.

“I am so full that even looking at dessert might make me burst, Goro.” It wasn’t a lie; they had all dined well. She was regretting wearing such a form-fitting dress. 

“Do not be silly.” He was murmuring in her ear now, soft and silky. “Everyone needs dessert.” His tone sent a shudder through her that she couldn’t conceal. There was a fire in Oda’s eyes as he watched Goro whisper to her. She had come to learn that it meant the always-smoldering kindling between them would catch soon.

“Please excuse me, friends,” Goro continued, making sure V could be upright before sliding out of the booth and making his way further into the restaurant. Oda had bent his head and was tapping at his phone. Her own buzzed a second later and she couldn’t stop herself from rolling her eyes a bit. “Oda, I’m right here, you didn’t need—”

**[ODA 09:14 PM]:**

_ Take your panties off and give them _

_ to me under the table. Now. _

Even copious sake and the post-prandial glow she was basking in couldn’t dampen her suspicions now. “Oda, what—”

“Now.” It was a hiss, barely audible, and definitely left no room for negotiation. She clicked her tongue in annoyance under her breath, struggling to find the balance to lift her hips and work her hands underneath her skirt enough to reach her thong.  _ Did he understand how tight this dress actually was?  _ She doubted it.

The lace mercifully slid down her thighs at the last possible moment: both Goro and the server were approaching the table. V straightened from pulling them off of her ankles as the older man slid back into the booth, balling them up and pressing them into the open palm she felt hovering by her leg, grateful to be rid of them before some sort of fluffy, caramel-covered dessert was laid on the table.

“I don’t know if I wanna eat this or lay down and go to bed on it,” she blurted out. Her hand bumped up against Oda’s underneath the tablecloth; he  _ still  _ had it outstretched expectantly, like she had something other than her panties to give him.  _ Demanding prick.  _ She smacked his fingers away, seeing the sudden flinch of surprise flicker across his face for half a second.

“Let us try eating it first, shall we?” Goro said, with humor in his voice. Oda nodded in agreement, picking up one of the spoons provided while Goro clutched the other. V blinked at the plate.

“It doesn’t look like a dish suited to using my fingers, gentleman; we’re one spoon short.”

“Honestly, V.” The chastisement came from Oda this time, who was already sinking his utensil into the delicacy and bringing it up to her lips. “You said you would not embarrass us.” She could hear Goro’s amused huff of breath to her side.

“Oh, but it’s okay to spoon-feed me like a child—” A sharp tug on her scalp stopped her sentence short. Goro had twined a few strands through his hand discreetly and given her what seemed like an affectionate correction.

“Do not be a brat, V.”  _ Christ _ , the only thing that made her want to do was misbehave harder, but she complied, opening her lips and being rewarded with soft, fluffy custard and warm, bittersweet caramel. The noise she made was far more sexual than she meant it to be, and she saw a flare of lust in Oda’s eyes.

“Holy shit, what even is that?”

“ _ Purin,’’  _ Goro offered from behind her, and she turned her head to see him finish off a spoonful himself before holding out another to her lips. She accepted it unquestioningly. “Good girl.”

His words ignited the pilot light flickering between her legs and the knowing glance in his eyes as he said them made the flame flare high.  _ They were trying to kill her. _ This was the only logical explanation for this outing of charged words and gestures; of Oda’s demanding text message; of this strangely sensuous round-robin of decadence happening between the three.  _ They had been tasked to murder her and dispose of her body but wanted to give her a proper send-off. _

“Good?” She heard Oda’s quiet question from her left, his forehead resting tenderly against her temple. She nodded, brain thick from the heady mixture of sake, dopamine, and anticipation. His hand was stroking down her side slowly, catching bare patches of flesh from the exposed back of her garment. It was bold for him; he tried to keep their relationship as professional as possible in public, although he often forgot what was actually appropriate personal space when it came to standing next to her.

“I am glad you two enjoyed yourselves,” Goro said from her right, trailing a fingertip through the leftover drizzle in the dessert plate. She knew what was coming next but could scarcely believe it as it happened, watching him raise the digit to her lips expectantly. She tried desperately to think of the other people that might be able to see them, of their reputation and the rumors that might fly, of  _ her  _ fragile reputation, only beginning to solidify itself.

None of that seemed to matter when her friend looked at her like that, though, with delicate silver rings encircling dark pools of desire. Her tongue darted out to draw his finger in so she could close her lips over it; he tasted of chrome and skin and caramel, and V was certain she was getting drunker on just that alone. 

The moment was over as soon as it had begun; Goro withdrew his hand with a sinister smile that made her breath catch. “Shall we? The bill has been settled.” He stood and offered his hand to V for assistance; her wobbly knees and sake-drunk brain were grateful as she tottered out of the booth. “Oh, before I forget—I believe these are for you, Oda-kun.” His hand extended toward the other man, blocked from the view of others by V’s body. She could just make out black lace peeking out from under his palm in the dim light— _ her panties _ , she realized with a deep red flush—as Oda took them and tucked them into his jacket casually, like a business card.

“Goro,” she whispered fiercely, “do you just take all the random panties thrust at you mistakenly under tables in restaurants?” Oda had taken her hand and begun to lead them from the table toward the entrance, but it was not hastily enough to stop Goro from patting her ass in a get-along-now motion. She wasn’t sure if she was more embarrassed or aroused.

“Not all. Just the ones I perhaps might have acquired myself.” His hand burned like fire on the small of her back, almost as hot as the searing glances Oda was shooting her way as they went out to the valet station. She felt like the entire restaurant was following them with their eyes; the glance she managed to sneak while still on the drunk-in-heels move confirmed her suspicions. She was no prude, and certainly not in comparison to her present company, but she could feel the flush on her cheeks deepen at the idea of people assuming scandalous things about their relationship to her—and being at least  _ a little _ right about it.

V was grateful for the cool air on her face as they pushed out into the rainy night; even the moisture was a welcome reprieve on her sizzling skin. She eyed the back-up at the valet station;  _ I’ll have at least a few minutes to chill the fuck out. _

“Ah! Takemura-san, Oda-san, Ms. V,” said the eager young man at the valet stand.  _ Wait, he knew who she was? _ “Your car is here.”

Of course it was: sleek, black, too big for three people, and ready without delay. This level of simpering was new to V, and she wasn’t sure she’d ever grow accustomed to it. It didn’t happen as much if she was on her own—polite nods and smiles, doors held open, but that wasn’t much beyond standard societal courtesy. As soon as she was with Oda, though, things took on a sycophantic tinge that made her uncomfortable, doubly so when she was with Goro or they were all together. She did her best to smile at the man who held the door for them and say “ _ Arigato _ ” before disappearing into the car’s plush, black leather interior between her two dates. That’s definitely what it  _ felt _ like at this point.

The car was pulling away smoothly when one of them spoke. It was Oda. “If you will excuse me for a moment, Takemura-san…”

“Certainly.”

V turned her face curiously toward her lover just in time to receive the full, passionate brunt of his mouth closing over hers, tongue pushing eagerly past her teeth as he swallowed her whimper of surprise. His desperation was sweeter than the dessert they’d shared; she couldn’t help but return his affection with enthusiasm, one hand reaching back to brace herself and landing squarely on Goro’s thigh. She heard him suck in a breath through his teeth. The reality of the sound and sculpted muscle beneath her palm snapped her back into her body. She wrenched herself away from Oda’s lips, trying to push him back with only limited success, redirecting him to her neck instead. “Fuck, Oda! Stop! Goro, I’m sorry—”

“No need for apologies, little serpent,” came the gruff rumble from behind her. She felt his fingers close on her wrist and lift her hand off his leg, moving it to—oh.  _ Oh.  _ She had felt that before. Just not with anyone else in the room.

“Okay, hold up.” She grabbed a handful of Oda’s hair and yanked him reluctantly off of her, his eyes blown wide with lust; she very pointedly moved her hand off of the press of Goro’s erection through his trousers, resting it instead on his arm. V’s pulse was thundering in her ears; the haze of desire was thick in the cabin and she wasn’t sure who was emanating it the most strongly out of all of them. She put the question she had been pondering all night to a voice, although the answer was abundantly clear at this point.  _ They had still better explain themselves.  _

“What in the actual  _ fuck _ is going on here, boys?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and feedback welcome. :D


	14. We're Howling Forever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just your friendly, neighborhood clown-sandwich-artist with a delivery. -honk honk-
> 
> Suggested listening: "Lionness," Sarah Fimm

V had participated in conversations in unusual circumstances before: under threat of death, heavily intoxicated, as a disembodied lump of code floating in the Net. She had managed to get through all of them and come out the other side relatively unscathed.

_ This one, though— _ the one she was trying to have while both Goro  _ and _ Oda pressed hot, open-mouthed kisses to either side of her neck in between sentences— _ this one might kill me. _

Her breath was coming in tortured sips, words flinging themselves out of her brain and into the world only with great effort. “So you two got together—” Oda’s tongue traced the shell of her ear, pulling a shiver from her. “—and decided that the best solution—” Goro rested his warm hand inside her skirt on her thigh, as high as the restricting fabric would allow, and stroked small circles into her skin with his thumb. Her hips twitched. “—to this potentially-awkward situation was—” A sharp nip of Oda’s teeth on her pulse point cut her words off and a whimper escaped her. “—to just  _ force it _ and make everyone suffer together?” Each of her hands was clenched into a suit jacket, one black, and one white. 

She heard Goro’s chuckle melt into the skin of her neck, just before her dress stopped his progress. “We thought it needless to feud with such an embarrassment of riches, V. Oda-kun and I have…shared before when the situation has called for it.”  _ What kind of situation fuckin’  _ calls for  _ a threesome at Arasaka? What kind of situation  _ doesn’t _ call for a threesome at Arasaka, more like. _

“You’re fucking with me.”  _ Not yet, you gonk.  _ She could barely process her surprise through the thick haze of lust in her brain. She wanted to turn and stare at him in shock, but that would mean Oda would have to stop doing that  _ thing _ with his tongue to her ear, and she really didn’t want that to stop. Ever.

“Why would I lie?” Even if she could come up with a good answer, her ability to articulate clear thoughts was quickly disappearing.

“We determined that the amount of affection we harbor for you individually might be complementary when combined,” Oda breathed. He had slotted a free hand into the space between the seat and the small of her back, fingernails dragging lightly over the bare column of her spine. It was one of the sweeter things he’d ever said to her; she was glad she’d heard it over the blood thundering in her ears.

_ “You have arrived at your destination.”  _ The loss of double the hands and mouths all at once made V whine louder than she would have liked. She couldn’t see either of the mens’ faces as they all slid out of the car, but she knew they were smirking just the same. Their “destination” turned out to be Oda’s, which was for the better anyway; they had left her apartment in some state earlier in the evening, although this did mean that Goro would see the extent of their cohabitation. Her lover’s meticulousness meant all of her things here had a home, but that several of them were on full display: her toothbrush, her shampoo, her coffee mugs by the little electric pot. 

The elevator was a powder keg of silence and fiercely-strained self-control. Oda had an arm wrapped tightly around her at the ribcage, pulling her against him, which freed up space for Goro to smooth a hand over the swell of her ass. 

“If you do not want this, wildflower, just say so.” The murmur from Oda was soft and low in her ear, and she heard Goro’s hum of agreement beside her as the elevator doors slid open. Each step down the hall felt pendulous and that was only partially because she had on precarious footwear. 

Did she want it? Of  _ course _ she wanted it. Could only recall maybe two or three things she had ever wanted more. One of them, though, was to make sure that her relationships with these men remained unscathed. Goro and—whether or not she admitted it—Oda were here lifelines here. She didn’t want to (couldn’t) lose either.

“V?” The door shutting behind them jarred her back to the present. Twin pairs of icy cool optics were studying her unflinchingly, waiting for her to respond. She kicked off her heels, indicating they should do the same; she and Oda were home for the night, at least. She watched them as they worked: dextrous fingers undoing laces, precise movements arranging possessions, controlled advancement into the living area where she now stood belying the power and fury she knew lay underneath both of their studied visages of neutrality.

“I don’t want it to make things all gonked,” she admitted, seeing some invisible thread of tension pulled between the three of them relax. A soft smile formed on Goro’s face; she watched Oda’s brows unfurrow.

“We are all adults here, little serpent,” the man in white said, reaching for one of her hands.  _ Was that what she was now? _ Goro’s warm hand closed around hers and pulled her gently toward the inevitability of what was coming, nestling her frame between the two men. Oda’s strong chest pressed against her back, his hands cradling her hips; she could feel his arousal, warm and firm, against her lower back. Goro held her head in his hands, gently encouraging her gaze up to his. “I give you my solemn vow that this will change nothing between us, or between myself and Oda.”

“And I mine, wildflower.” The earnestness in Oda’s voice convinced V of his sincerity instantly. She studied Goro’s face for any hint of duplicity and could find none, only the comfort, understanding, and safety he had always given to her, even when she had not necessarily earned it. She was a fool to think she could say no to either of them. So she did what fools do and rushed in.

“Okay.” It was soft but certain, and Goro had his mouth fitted to hers before she could draw another breath, tongue expertly stroking between her lips. It was Oda’s mouth on her neck, meandering its way slowly upward from her shoulder, that pulled the first moan from deep inside her; she reached a hand back, clenching it around his belt and pulling his hips hard into her. His growl rumbled a warning against her neck and sent arousal flooding between her thighs. She felt his deft fingers undoing the hooks of her dress and expertly easing the invisible zipper at the base of her spine open.  _ So that’s why he watched me get ready. _

Her lungs were burning from oxygen deprivation and desire when Goro pulled away from her, resting their foreheads together; his hands eased her dress off her shoulders and downward, a helpful tug from Oda freeing the garment from the curve of her hips to puddle at her feet and be kicked away. Her panties had been handled far earlier in the evening by 100% more people than she expected, of course; the only thing left to do was even the playing field. “Some people in this room are wearing far too much clothing, and it sure as shit isn’t me.”

V had never heard Goro and Oda chuckle  _ together; _ it echoed in surround sound in her brain and her heart. Her hands reached eagerly for the placket of Goro’s shirt as he shrugged out of his jacket, draping it across the couch. “Oda, you better be stripping,” she said breathlessly.

“Bossy.” She watched a black jacket join Goro’s on the couch and was satisfied her demand was being met. Her impatience was mounting in spades; desire, need, gratitude, and something slightly sharper underneath it all were swirling in some awesome maelstrom, threatening to swallow her whole. Her knees hit the cold tile, fingers making sloppy but effective work of the fastening on Goro’s trousers. His shirt had gone the way of his jacket, and as her hand reached to close around his hard length, she turned her head and was graced with the sight of Oda, towering above her, naked and eager, his erection straining toward her waiting mouth.

He caught her chin in his iron grip as her lips closed around him and her head started moving; she was distantly aware of her hand wrapped around Goro’s cock and the way his hips were rocking into her tight grip, but the only thing she had room for in her mind was Oda. His piercing gaze bored into her as she pleasured him, fingertips digging into the skin of her jaw. “What a pretty little whore,” he muttered, and she didn’t care who heard the noise she made in response, in this room or otherwise.

“A gorgeous one indeed,” V heard from her other side, and Oda didn’t resist when she pulled her mouth away from him, strands of saliva stretching from her lips as she turned her head to lavish Goro with the same attention. The view was different but just as intoxicating; he had taken his hair down and let it fall loose around his face, like he knew she loved. She felt Oda’s hand close over her own as she worked up and down his length, but couldn’t tear her eyes away from the way Goro’s mouth was hanging open just slightly. 

He was pulling her off of him and to her feet what seemed like only seconds later. She whimpered; all she wanted to do at the moment was give to these men, but it seemed they had other plans. Oda was steering her into the bedroom and down onto the mattress, pushing her knees apart and prostrating himself between her thighs like an acolyte at his chosen temple. He had his mouth locked on her cunt seconds later, and she keened, body curling upward against the sudden shock of pleasure. Her eyes caught Goro’s as he stretched out on the mattress next to her; he saw the storm of her emotions and spoke to them as he always did so well.

“Let us love you, sweet girl,” he murmured, pushing her hair from her neck to place his mouth on it once more. Oda hummed his agreement against her center, making her back arch up and push her breast into Goro’s waiting hand.  _ Was this love? _ She understood why people went so batshit for it if that was the case.

Goro’s deft fingers caressed and teased her nipples taut while Oda’s mouth expertly wound her tighter and tighter; the digits he had slipped inside her were now reaching for a tiny glass bottle that had been sitting at his bedside for a few days. He had waved off her questions about it by kissing her senseless the other night.

“You…scheming…sons of bitches,” V managed to pant out between needy whines, and there it was again: that tandem chuckle that erased any doubt from her mind that they had exacted other women to this sweet torture before. “I bet…you say that…to all…your victims.” The sharp bite on her thigh and pinch at a nipple made her squeal.

“No.” “Not at all.”

There was a shift then; Oda’s mouth moved so his tongue could lap at her entrance; his fingers, slick with the bottle’s contents, smoothed gently at her other entrance before pressing one inside. Goro’s hand closed over one of her own and urged it downward, working at the bundle of nerves Oda had already made so sensitive. Her eyes rolled in her skull as he worked another finger inside her, rocking them gently as his tongue continued to probe her; the strange fullness pushed against the thread of pleasure already pulled so tight, fraying it until it snapped.

“Come for us, you filthy slut.” The slur from Goro’s lips, normally so sweet, made her orgasm rip through her, a tsunami of pleasure even the wail against his shoulder couldn’t help ease. Her muscles seized, and she couldn’t stop her legs from closing tight around the head between them. Her vision was closing in, fuzzy and black around the edges.

She felt Oda ease her quaking legs open after minutes that felt like days, withdrawing his mouth and fingers, leaving her a sweaty, whimpering heap in Goro’s arms. He stared at her as a predator in the midst of dining on his prey; his chin glistened with her arousal as he stalked up the mattress toward her.

“Kiss me, Oda, please,” V begged, barely recognizing her own voice, raspy from moans and desperate to taste him.

“Whenever you want, wildflower.” He devoured her mouth with the same desperate desire he had consumed her with between her legs, the same enthusiasm he met her with day after day; she could taste herself on his lips, and if she wasn’t delirious with passion before, she certainly was overheating with it now.

She barely noticed Goro softly shifting her onto her side, or Oda’s hand passing him the glass bottle and a foil packet until she heard the rip of the wrapper on both sides of her, one after the other, and Oda pulled his mouth away to pay attention to his actions.

“I have an implant,” she said out loud to no one in particular, confusion coloring her voice. They both knew that, from her medical charts if nothing else.

“We know, but I do not believe any of us want an accident,” Goro responded, as Oda nodded his head in agreement.

“True, both of your offsprings would be terrors.” The crack of Goro’s hand on V’s ass and the yelp it caused echoed in the apartment

“To say nothing of the influence of their mother.” The smirk on Oda’s face was delicious, and rather than try and come up with a retort—Goro had rendered that impossible as his fingers had started to gently continue preparing her for what was to come—she settled for pulling his mouth to hers again, licking into it eagerly. She felt a hand hook into the crook of her knee, slowly opening her body towards Oda like a precious tome to be studied. He gripped her hip and drove himself home inside her so truly that she thought she might come apart again right then and there.

He kept himself buried deep inside, rocking enough to tease but not to satisfy until she whined against his lips. “Are you trying to be a jerk or what— _ oh!”  _ Her head jerked back involuntarily at the first blunt press of Goro’s length against her other entrance. Slick though he was—and he had made abundantly sure—he felt so  _ big _ that she couldn’t help but tense.

“Relax, little serpent,” he murmured reassuringly into her ear where her head had come to rest on his shoulder. “Breathe.” His lips peppered kisses across her cheek, temple, jaw as she focused on drawing in deep, even breaths.

Oda had started to rock inside her a little more earnestly now; she welcomed the distraction from the pressure of her other lover inching into her so slowly and patiently. His lips muttered praises against the skin of her throat, collarbone bared to him from the angle of her head. “What a good girl you are, V. So eager. Look how well you take us both. Like we were made just for you.”

The 180 from Oda’s normal dirty talk made her head swim with surprise, with longing, with other feelings she didn’t have the capacity to name or examine right now. She felt Goro shudder against her back; he was fully seated inside, and when Oda came to rest as well, the absolute ferocity of sensations threatened to overwhelm her. She was full enough to burst, inside and out; Goro noticed the sobs threatening to spill out of her first.

“Shhhh, shhh,” he soothed, resting her leg on Oda’s hip to splay his fingers wide across the valley between her breasts as her breaths shuddered in and out of her. “V. What is it you say when you want to stop?”

“Ch-cherry b-b-blossom.” The phrase stuttered out of her mouth.

“Do you want to stop?” She responded by plunging a hand backward into Goro’s silky locks, gripping hard and rolling her hips experimentally, leaving all three of them groaning. 

“No fuckin’ way.”

“There she is.” She could hear the smirk in Oda’s voice as his hips began to move against hers again, each slide home striking a deep and primal place inside her, heated to molten by their activities. She squirmed to meet him, the motion shifting Goro inside her by proxy, who had been as still as a stone as she adjusted to both of them.  _ He does his self-discipline credit _ .

“Goro.” She gave his hair a tug, earning her a growl and a turn of his head. “Fuck me.  _ Please. _ ” It was her turn to capture his lips with her own, her whines lost in his mouth as he began thrusting gently in a counter-rhythm to Oda’s. As one retreated, the other plunged forward, two hammers forging the hot iron of her heart.

The pace stayed slow, steady, sensual; the burning stretch of fullness soon gave way to a deeper, more urgent demand for possession. V tilted her head reluctantly away from Goro’s to feast her eyes upon Oda; his hair was in disarray, a thin sheen of sweat ran across his forehead from restraining himself. His eyes were fixated on her like he was committing every cell to memory. 

“More, please.” She whispered to him, her free hand cradling his face. “Claim me.” 

The last of Oda’s self-control slipped away at her request; his motions took on a more punishing quality. Goro grasped her knee again, sensing the change of pace and adjusting his own, spreading her open and bare for the taking. 

She couldn’t stop a hand from dropping down to trace over her clit; the merest brush set off threatening sparks, making her hips stutter in the established rhythm. Oda laughed darkly, pressing his lips to her palm that still held his face.

“Are you going to come again, you brat?”

“Going to let us fuck you until you cry, sweet girl?”

_ Oh, no _ . They couldn’t gang up on her like this. She was already writhing between them, mercilessly trapped between their torsos as they pounded into her, quickly sharpening her pleasure toward a point. “Please… _ please…”  _ She wasn’t even sure what she was asking for. 

“Please what?” He was no longer Goro, but the Devil himself, as she had always suspected he was. “Please fuck you so hard you come like the nasty whore you are?”

“Only if you ask nicely, wildflower.” And there was the silky voice of his accomplice, the serpent in Eden.

“Please, Oda, please, Goro, please!” It was desperate and V didn’t care who heard as another climax rushed up on her. The fluttering of her walls pulled Oda into his own release, hips punching up into her as he groaned; she followed moments later, a wanton scream ripping from her throat as pleasure so intense it was pain poured out from her center into her limbs. Her eyes, unseeing, rolled toward the ceiling.

Goro came undone behind her shortly afterward, but the roar of his orgasm was blunted by the shuddering sobs that were already wracking her body; neither man wasted any time entwining their arms around her, holding her tight while she rode out the wave of emotion and aftershocks of ecstasy.

V wasn’t sure how long they laid there, still inside her while she cried; Goro murmured comforting nothings into her ear and Oda nuzzled in tight against her neck, pressing tender kisses against it. 

It was only when she had settled, boneless and quiet, between them that Goro withdrew, disappearing into the bathroom while Oda still clung to her tightly. When he returned with a warm cloth and dry towel, the guard changed seamlessly: Oda pulled away as Goro moved in, gently cleaning the evidence of their adventure from her and encouraging her beneath the rumpled sheets. He produced a bottle of water from somewhere and she gulped at it eagerly. 

She caught his hand as he stood. “Stay?” Her voice cracked from its evening of exertion. “I know you don’t normally, but…”

Goro didn’t answer right away, despite the upward twitch of his lips at her exhausted request. He instead turned to Oda, who was sliding into bed and curling around V like he would float away untethered if he didn’t. “Oda-kun?”

“Whatever she wants, Takemura-san. Tonight I have learned that I am now completely incapable of telling this minx no.” He hit the lights and they dimmed down, gradually fading completely.

“Ha!” It was all V could muster, but still cocky enough to earn her a sleepy pinch on her bum from Oda.

There was a rustle of linens, and Goro joined them. The bed was spacious with plenty of room for all three to sleep comfortably, but her hands reached out and he slid over without prompting, tangling their fingers together and brushing his lips over her forehead in a final goodnight kiss. “Sleep well, V.”

“Thanks for dinner, Goro.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading this hot, hot mess! Comments and feedback always welcome. :D
> 
> If you have something you would like to see me write, please visit the Google Form linked in Chapter 12 to shoot me your ideas.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and feedback always welcome! If you enjoy this fic, please consider buying me a [Ko-Fi.](https://ko-fi.com/asnakecult) I love creating for you guys.
> 
> Thank you to @shenanigan_manifesto and @postmodernsleaze for being terrible enablers and very enthusiastic cheerleaders. Also, thanks to all the great people on the Cyberpunks, Afterlife, and Lizzie's Discord servers. I'm in love with all of you.
> 
> Come hang out on [Tumblr!](https://cp2077thotsociety.tumblr.com/) Tag your thirst with #cp2077thotsociety.


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